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CAPTAINS 
OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 


OAK  ST.  HDSF 


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CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN   EDITION 

VOLUME  31 

THE   CHRONICLES 

OF  AMERICA  SERIES 

ALLEN  JOHNSON 

EDITOR 

GERHARD   R.    LOMER 

CHARLES    W.   JEFFERYS 

ASSISTANT   EDITORS 


«!f!¥F^ 


CAPTAINS 
OF  THE  CIVIL  v^ 

A  CHRONICLE  OF 

THE  BLUE  AND  THE  GRAi 

BY  WILLIAM  WOOD 


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ij/paiil    vd    riqBigoJorl*! 


NETV    HAVEN:  YALE   UNIVER> 

TORONTO:   GLASGOW,    pr 

LONDON:   HUMPHREY 

OXFORD   UNIVERSI 


GENERAL    U.   S.   GRANT 

Photograph    by    Brady.     In    the    collection    of    L.    C.    Handy, 
Washington. 


'.tm'-Km?mwfw, 


CAPTAINS 
OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

A   CHRONICLE   OF 

THE   BLUE  AND   THE   GRAY 

BY   WILLIAM   WOOD 


NEW   HAVEN:   YALE   UNIVERSITY   PRESS 

TORONTO:   GLASGOW,    BROOK   &   COo 

LONDON:   HUMPHREY   MILFORD 

OXFORD    UNIVERSITY   PRESS 

1921 


Copyright,  1921,  by  Yale  University  Press 


TO 

MY    AMERICAN   FRIENDS 

OF   THE 

BOONE   AND   CROCKETT   CLUB 


PREFACE 

Sixty  years  ago  today  the  guns  that  thundered 
round  Fort  Sumter  began  the  third  and  greatest 
modern  civil  war  fought  by  EngHsh-speaking  people. 
This  war  was  quite  as  full  of  politics  as  were  the 
other  two  —  the  War  of  the  American  Revolution 
and  that  of  Puritan  and  Cavalier.  But,  though  the 
present  Chronicle  never  ignores  the  vital  correlations 
between  statesmen  and  commanders,  it  is  a  book  of 
warriors,  through  and  through. 

I  gratefully  acknowledge  the  indispensable  assist- 
ance of  Colonel  G.J.  Fiebeger,  a  West  Point  expert, 
and  of  Dr.  Allen  Johnson,  chief  editor  of  the  series 
and  Professor  of  American  History  at  Yale. 

William  Wood, 

Late  Colonel  commanding  8th  Royal 
Rifles,  and  Officer-in-charge,  Canadian 
Special  Mission  Overseas. 

Quebec, 

April  12,  1921. 


CONTENTS 

I.     THE  CLASH:  1861  Page      1 

II.     THE  COMBATANTS  "  56 

III.  THE  NAVAL  WAR:   1862  "  84 

IV.  THE  RIVER  WAR:   1862  "  116 
V.     LINCOLN:  WAR  STATESMAN  "  168 

VI.     LEE  AND  JACKSON:  1862-3  "  193 

VII.     GRANT  WINS  THE  RIVER  WAR:  1863  "  260 

VIII.     GETTYSBURG:  1863  "  287 

IX.     FARRAGUT  AND  THE  NAVY:  1863-4  "  307 

X.     GRANT  ATTACKS  THE  FRONT:  1864  "  327 

XI.     SHERMAN  DESTROYS  THE  BASE:  1864     "  366 

XII.     THE  END:  1865  "  379 

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL  NOTE  "  397 

INDEX  "  401 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

GENERAL  U.  S.  GRANT 

Photograph  by  Brady.     In  the  collection  of 

L.  C.  Handy,  Washington.  Frontispiece 

GENERAL   ROBERT   E.   LEE 

Photograph.     In   the   collection   of   L.    C. 

Handy,  Washington.  Facing  page      16 

GENERAL    T.    J.    (STONEWALL)    JACK- 
SON 

Photograph.     In   the   collection   of   L.    C. 

Handy,  Washington.  "  *'        ^8 

NORTH  AND  SOUTH  IN  1861 

Map    by  W.  L.  G.  Joerg,   American  Geo- 
graphical Society.  "  "        64 

ADMIRAL   D.   G.   FARRAGUT 

Photograph  by  Brady.  "  "        96 

CIVIL  WAR:  CAMPAIGNS  OF  1862 

Map  by  W.  L.  G.   Joerg,  American   Geo- 
graphical Society.  "  "      J60 

CIVIL  WAR:  VIRGINIA  CAMPAIGNS,  1862    . 
Map   by  W.  L.  G.  Joerg,  American   Geo- 
graphical Society.  "  "      W8 


xiv  ILLUSTRATIONS 


CIVIL  WAR:  CAMPAIGNS  OF  1863 

Map  by  W.  L.  G.  Joerg,    American   Geo- 
graphical Society.  Facing  page    SO4 

GENERAL   W.   T.   SHERMAN 

Photograph  by  Brady.     In  the  collection  of 

L.  C.  Handy,  Washington.  "  "      368 

CIVIL  WAR:  CAMPAIGNS  OF  1864 

Map  by  W.  L.  G.  Joerg,    American   Geo- 
graphical Society.  "  "      376 


CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

CHAPTER  I 

THE  clash:  1861 

States  which  claimed  a  sovereign  right  to  secede 
from  the  Union  naturally  claimed  the  correspond- 
ing right  to  resume  possession  of  all  the  land  they 
had  ceded  to  that  Union's  Government  for  the  use 
of  its  naval  and  military  posts.  So  South  Carolina, 
after  leading  the  way  to  secession  on  December 
20, 1860,  at  once  oegan  to  work  for  the  retrocession 
of  the  forts  defending  her  famous  cotton  port  of 
Charleston.  These  defenses,  being  of  vital  con- 
sequence to  both  sides,  were  soon  to  attract 
the  strained  attention  of  the  whole  country. 

There  were  three  minor  forts :  Castle  Pinckney, 
dozing  away,  in  charge  of  a  solitary  sergeant,  on  an 
island  less  than  a  mile  from  the  city ;  Fort  Moultrie, 
feebly  garrisoned  and  completely  at  the  mercy  of 


2  CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

attackers  on  its  landward  side;  and  Fort  Johnson 
over  on  James  Island.  Lastly,  there  was  the  world- 
renowned  Fort  Sumter,  which  then  stood,  un- 
finished and  ungarrisoned,  on  a  little  islet  beside 
the  main  ship  channel,  at  the  entrance  to  the  har- 
bor, and  facing  Fort  Moultrie  just  a  mile  away. 
The  proper  war  garrison  of  all  the  forts  should  have 
been  over  a  thousand  men.  The  actual  garrison  — 
including  officers,  band,  and  the  Castle  Pinckney 
sergeant  —  was  less  than  a  hundred.  It  was,  how- 
ever, loyal  to  the  Union;  and  its  commandant, 
Major  Robert  Anderson,  though  born  in  the  slave- 
owning  State  of  Kentucky,  was  determined  to  fight. 
The  situation,  here  as  elsewhere,  was  compli- 
cated by  Floyd,  President  Buchanan's  Secretary  of 
War,  soon  to  be  forced  out  of  office  on  a  charge  of 
misapplying  public  funds.  Floyd,  as  an  ardent 
Southerner,  was  using  the  last  lax  days  of  the  Bu- 
chanan Government  to  get  the  army  posts  ready 
for  capitulation  whenever  secession  should  have 
become  an  accomplished  fact.  He  urged  on  con- 
struction, repairs,  and  armament  at  Charleston, 
while  refusing  to  strengthen  the  garrison,  in  or- 
der, as  he  said,  not  to  provoke  Carolina.  More- 
over, in  November  he  had  replaced  old  Colonel 
Gardner,   a   Northern   veteran   of    "1812,"    by 


THE  CLASH:  1861  3 

Anderson  the  Southerner,  in  whom  he  hoped 
to  find  a  good  capitulator.  But  this  time  Floyd 
was  wrong. 

The  day  after  Christmas  Anderson's  little  garri- 
son at  Fort  Moultrie  slipped  over  to  Fort  Sumter 
under  cover  of  the  dark,  quietly  removed  Floyd's 
workmen,  who  were  mostly  Baltimore  Secessionists, 
and  began  to  prepare  for  defense.  Next  morning 
Charleston  was  furious  and  began  to  prepare  for 
attack.  The  South  Carolina  authorities  at  once 
took  formal  possession  of  Pinckney  and  Moultrie; 
and  three  days  later  seized  the  United  States  Ar- 
senal in  Charleston  itself.  Ten  days  later  again,  on 
January  9,  1861,  the  Star  of  the  West,  a  merchant 
vessel  coming  in  with  reinforcements  and  supplies 
for  Anderson,  was  fired  on  and  forced  to  turn  back. 
Anderson,  who  had  expected  a  man-of-war,  would 
not  fire  in  her  defense,  partly  because  he  still  hoped 
there  might  yet  be  peace. 

While  Charleston  stood  at  gaze  and  Anderson  at 
bay  the  ferment  of  secession  was  working  fast  in 
Florida,  where  another  tiny  garrison  was  all  the 
Union  had  to  hold  its  own.  This  garrison,  under 
two  loyal  young  lieutenants,  Slemmer  and  Gilman, 
occupied  Barrancas  Barracks  in  Pensacola  Bay. 
Late  at  night  on  the  eighth  of  January  (the  day 


4  CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

before  the  Star  of  the  West  was  fired  on  at  Charles- 
ton) some  twenty  Secessionists  came  to  seize  the 
old  Spanish  Fort  San  Carlos,  where,  up  to  that 
time,  the  powder  had  been  kept.  This  fort,  though 
lying  close  beside  the  barracks,  had  always  been 
unoccupied ;  so  the  Secessionists  looked  forward  to 
an  easy  capture.  But,  to  their  dismay,  an  unex- 
pected guard  challenged  them,  and,  not  getting 
the  proper  password  in  reply,  dispersed  them  with 
the  first  shots  of  the  Civil  War. 

Commodore  Armstrong  sat  idle  at  the  Pensacola 
Navy  Yard,  distracted  between  the  Union  and 
secession.  On  the  ninth  Slemmer  received  orders 
from  Winfield  Scott,  General-in-Chief  at  Washing- 
ton, to  use  all  means  in  defense  of  Union  property. 
Next  morning  Slemmer  and  his  fifty  faithful  men 
were  landed  on  Santa  Rosa  Island,  just  one  mile 
across  the  bay,  where  the  dilapidated  old  Fort 
Pickens  stood  forlorn.  Two  days  later  the  Com- 
modore surrendered  the  Navy  Yard,  the  Stars  and 
Stripes  were  lowered,  and  everything  ashore  fell 
into  the  enemy's  hands.  There  was  no  flagstaff  at 
Fort  Pickens;  but  the  Union  colors  were  at  once 
hung  out  over  the  northwest  bastion,  in  full  view 
of  the  shore,  while  the  Supply  and  Wyandotte,  the 
only  naval  vessels  in  the  bay,  and  both  commanded 


THE  CLASH:  1861  5 

by  loyal  men,  mastheaded  extra  colors  and  stood 
clear.  Five  days  afterwards  they  had  to  sail  for 
New  York;  and  Slemmer,  whose  total  garrison  had 
been  raised  to  eighty  by  the  addition  of  thirty 
sailors,  was  left  to  hold  Fort  Pickens  if  he  could. 

He  had  already  been  summoned  to  surrender  by 
Colonel  Chase  and  Captain  Farrand,  who  had  left 
the  United  States  Army  and  Navy  for  the  service 
of  the  South.  Chase,  like  many  another  Southern 
officer,  was  stirred  to  his  inmost  depths  by  his  own 
change  of  allegiance.  "I  have  come,"  he  said,  "to 
ask  of  you  young  officers,  officers  of  the  same  army 
in  which  I  have  spent  the  best  and  happiest  years 
of  my  life,  the  surrender  of  this  fort;  and  fearing 
that  I  might  not  be  able  to  say  it  as  I  ought,  and 
also  to  have  it  in  proper  form,  I  have  put  it  in 
writing  and  will  read  it."  He  then  began  to  read. 
But  his  eyes  filled  with  tears,  and,  stamping  his 
foot,  he  said :  "  I  can't  read  it.  Here,  Farrand,  you 
read  it."  Farrand,  however,  pleading  that  his  eyes 
were  weak,  handed  the  paper  to  the  younger  Union 
officer,  saying,  "Here,  Oilman,  you  have  good  eyes, 
please  read  it."  Slemmer  refused  to  surrender  and 
held  out  till  reinforced  in  April,  by  which  time 
the  war  had  begun  in  earnest.  Fort  Pickens  was 
never  taken.    On  the  contrary,  it  supported  the 


6  CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

bombardment  of  the  Confederate  'longshore  posi- 
tions the  next  New  Year  (1862)  and  witnessed  the 
bm-ning  and  evacuation  of  Pensaeola  the  following 
ninth  of  May. 

While  Charleston  and  Pensaeola  were  fanning 
the  flames  of  secession  the  wildfire  was  running 
round  the  Gulf,  catching  well  tln-oughout  Louisi- 
ana, where  the  Governor  ordered  the  state  militia 
to  seize  every  place  belonging  to  the  Union,  and 
striking  inland  till  it  reached  the  farthest  army 
posts  in  Texas.  In  all  Louisiana  the  Union  Gov- 
ernment had  only  forty  men.  These  occupied  the 
Arsenal  at  Baton  Rouge  under  Major  Haskins. 
Haskins  was  loyal.  But  when  five  hundred  state 
militiamen  surrounded  him,  and  his  old  brother- 
oflBcer,  the  future  Confederate  General  Bragg,  per- 
suaded him  that  the  Union  was  really  at  an  end,  to 
all  intents  and  purposes,  and  when  he  found  no 
orders,  no  support,  and  not  even  any  guidance 
from  the  Government  at  Washington,  he  surren- 
dered with  the  honors  of  war  and  left  by  boat  for 
St.  Louis  in  Missouri. 

There  was  then  in  Louisiana  another  Union  of- 
ficer; but  made  of  sterner  stuff.  This  was  Colo- 
nel W.  T.  Sherman,  Superintendent  of  the  State 
Seminary  of  Learning  and  Military  Academy  at 


THE  CLASH:  1861  7 

Alexandria,  up  the  Red  River.  He  was  much  re- 
spected by  all  the  state  authorities,  and  was  care- 
fully watching  over  the  two  young  sons  of  another 
future  Confederate  leader,  General  Beauregard. 
William  Tecumseh  Sherman  had  retired  from  the 
Army  without  seeing  any  war  service,  unlike 
Haskins,  who  was  a  one-armed  veteran  of  theMexi- 
can  campaign.  But  Sherman  was  determined  to 
stand  by  the  Union,  come  what  might.  Yet  he 
was  equally  determined  to  wind  up  the  affairs  of 
the  State  Academy  so  as  to  hand  them  over  in  per- 
fect order.  A  few  days  after  the  seizure  of  the 
Arsenal,  and  before  the  formal  secession  of  the 
State,  he  wrote  to  the  Governor: 

Sir  :  As  I  occupy  a  quasi -mWitaTy  position  under  the 
laws  of  the  State,  I  deem  it  proper  to  acquaint  you 
that  I  accepted  such  position  wh^n  Louisiana  was  a 
State  of  the  Union,  and  when  the  motto  of  this 
seminary  was  inserted  in  marble  over  the  main  door : 
"By  the  liberality  of  the  General  Government  of  the 
United  States.  The  Union  —  esto  perpetua."  Recent 
events  foreshadow  a  great  change,  and  it  becomes  all 
men  to  choose.  ...  I  beg  you  to  take  immediate 
steps  to  relieve  me  as  superintendent,  the  moment 
the  State  determines  to  secede,  for  on  no  earthly  ac- 
count will  I  do  any  act  or  think  any  thought  hos- 
tile to,  or  in  defiance  of,  the  old  Government  of  the 
United  States. 


8  CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

Then,  to  the  lasting  credit  of  all  concerned,  the 
future  political  enemies  parted  as  the  best  of  per- 
sonal friends.  Sherman  left  everything  in  perfect 
order,  accounted  for  every  cent  of  the  funds,  and 
received  the  heartiest  thanks  and  best  wishes  of 
all  the  governing  officials,  who  embodied  the  fol- 
lowing sentence  in  their  final  resolution  of  April 
1,  1861 :  "They  cannot  fail  to  appreciate  the  man- 
liness of  character  which  ha;S  always  marked  the 
actions  of  Colonel  Sherman."  Long  before  this 
Louisiana  had  seceded,  and  Sherman  had  gone 
north  to  Lancaster,  Ohio,  where  he  arrived  about 
the  time  of  Lincoln's  inauguration. 

Meanwhile,  on  the  eighteenth  of  February,  the 
greatest  of  all  surrenders  had  taken  place  in  Texas, 
where  nineteen  army  posts  were  handed  over  to 
the  State  by  General  Twiggs.  San  Antonio  was 
swarming  with  Secessionist  rangers.  Unionist 
companies  were  marching  up  and  down.  The  Fed- 
eral garrison  was  leaving  the  town  on  parole,  with 
the  band  playing  Union  airs  and  Union  colors  fly- 
ing. The  whole  place  was  at  sixes  and  sevens,  and 
anything  might  have  happened. 

In  the  midst  of  this  confusion  the  colonel  com- 
manding the  Second  Regiment  of  United  States 
Cavalry  arrived  from  Fort  Mason.     He  was  on 


THE  CLASH:  1861  9 

his  way  to  Washington,  where  Winfield  Scott,  the 
veteran  General-in-Chief,  was  anxiously  waiting 
to  see  him;  for  this  colonel  was  no  ordinary  man. 
He  had  been  Scott's  Chief  of  Staff  in  Mexico,  where 
he  had  twice  won  promotion  for  service  in  the  field. 
He  had  been  a  model  Superintendent  at  West  Point 
and  an  exceedingly  good  officer  of  engineers  before 
he  left  them,  on  promotion,  for  the  cavalry.  Very 
tall  and  handsome,  magnificently  fit  in  body  rjid 
m  mind,  genial  but  of  commanding  presence,  this 
flower  of  Southern  chivalry  was  not  only  every  inch 
a  soldier  but  a  leader  born  and  bred.  Though  still 
unknown  to  public  fame  he  was  the  one  man  to 
whom  the  most  insightful  leaders  of  both  sides 
turned,  and  rightly  turned;  for  this  was  Robert 
Lee,  Lee  of  Virginia,  soon  to  become  one  of  the  very 
few  really  great  commanders  of  the  world. 

As  Lee  came  up  to  the  hotel  at  San  Antonio  he 
was  warmly  greeted  by  Mrs.  Darrow,  the  anxious 
wife  of  the  confidential  clerk  to  Major  Vinton,  the 
staunch  Union  officer  in  charge  of  the  pay  and 
quartermaster  services.  "Who  are  those  men?" 
he  asked,  pointing  to  the  rangers,  who  wore  red 
flannel  shoulder  straps.  "They  are  McCulloch's," 
she  answered ;  ' '  General  Twiggs  surrendered  every- 
thing  to  the  State  this  morning."     Years  after. 


10  CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

when  she  and  her  husband  and  Vinton  had  suf- 
ered  for  one  side  and  Lee  had  suffered  for  the 
other,  she  wrote  her  recollection  of  that  memorable 
day  in  these  few,  telling  words:  "I  shall  never  for- 
get his  look  of  astonishment,  as,  with  his  lips  trem- 
bling and  his  eyes  full  of  tears,  he  exclaimed, '  Has 
it  come  so  soon  as  this?'  In  a  short  time  I  saw  him 
crossing  the  plaza  on  his  way  to  headquarters  and 
noticed  particularly  that  he  was  in  citizen's  dress. 
He  returned  at  night  and  shut  himself  into  his 
room,  which  was  over  mine;  and  I  heard  his  foot- 
steps through  the  night,  and  sometimes  the  mvu- 
mur  of  his  voice,  as  if  he  was  praying.  He  remained 
at  the  hotel  a  week  and  in  conversations  declared 
that  the  position  he  held  was  a  neutral  one." 

Three  other  Union  witnesses  show  how  Lee 
agonized  over  the  fateful  decision  he  was  being 
forced  to  make.  Captain  R.  M.  Potter  says:  *'I 
have  seldom  seen  a  more  distressed  man.  He  said, 
'  When  I  get  to  Virginia  I  think  the  world  will  have 
one  soldier  less.  I  shall  resign  and  go  to  planting 
corn.'"  Colonel  Albert  G.  Brackett  says:  "Lee 
was  filled  with  sorrow  at  the  condition  of  affairs, 
and,  in  a  letter  to  me,  deploring  the  war  in  which 
we  were  about  to  engage,  made  use  of  these  words : 
'I  fear  the  liberties  of  our  country  will  be  buried  in 


THE  CLASH:  1861  11 

the  tomb  of  a  great  nation.'"  Colonel  Charles 
Anderson,  quoting  Lee's  final  words  in  Texas,  car- 
ries us  to  the  point  of  parting:  "I  still  think  my 
loyalty  to  Vii'ginia  ought  to  take  precedence  over 
that  which  is  due  to  the  Federal  Government;  and 
I  shall  so  report  myself  in  Washington.  If  Virginia 
stands  by  the  old  Union,  so  will  I.  But  if  she  se- 
cedes (though  I  do  not  believe  in  secession  as  a 
constitutional  right,  nor  that  there  is  suflScient 
cause  for  revolution)  then  I  will  still  follow  my 
native  State  with  my  sword,  and,  if  need  be,  with 
my  life.  I  know  you  think  and  feel  very  differently. 
But  I  can't  help  it.  These  are  my  principles;  and 
I  must  follow  them." 

Lee  reached  Washington  on  the  first  of  March. 
Lincoln,  delivering  his  Inaugural  on  the  fourth, 
brought  the  country  one  step  nearer  war  by  show- 
ing the  neutrals  how  impossible  it  was  to  reconcile 
his  principles  as  President  of  the  whole  United 
States  with  those  of  Jefferson  Davis  as  President 
of  the  seceding  parts.  "The  power  confided  to  me 
will  be  used  to  hold,  occupy,  and  possess  the  prop- 
erty and  places  belonging  to  the  government." 
Three  days  later  the  provisional  Confederate  Con- 
gress at  Montgomery  in  Alabama  passed  an  Army 
Act  authorizing  the  enlistment  of  one  hundred 


12  CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

thousand  men  for  one  year's  service.  Nine  days 
later  again,  having  adopted  a  Constitution  in  the 
meantime,  this  Congress  passed  a  Navy  Act,  au- 
thorizing the  purchase  or  construction  of  ten  little 
gunboats. 

In  April  the  main  storm  center  went  whirling 
back  to  Charleston,  where  Sherman's  old  friend 
Beauregard  commanded  the  forces  that  encircled 
Sumter.  Sumter,  still  unfinished,  had  been  de- 
signed for  a  garrison  of  six  hundred  and  fifty  com- 
batant men.  It  now  contained  exactly  sixty-five. 
It  was  to  have  been  provisioned  for  six  months. 
The  actual  supplies  could  not  be  made  to  last  be- 
yond two  weeks.  Both  sides  knew  that  Anderson's 
gallant  little  garrison  must  be  starved  out  by  the 
fifteenth.  But  the  excited  Carolinians  would  not 
wait,  because  they  feared  that  the  arrival  of  rein- 
forcements might  balk  them  of  their  easy  prey.  On 
the  eleventh  Beauregard,  acting  under  orders  from 
the  Confederate  Government,  sent  in  a  summons  to 
surrender.  Anderson  refused.  At  a  quarter  to  one 
the  next  morning  the  summons  was  repeated,  as 
pilots  had  meanwhile  reported  a  Federal  vessel  ap- 
proaching the  harbor.  Anderson  again  refused  and 
again  admitted  that  he  would  be  starved  out  on  the 
fifteenth.     Thereupon  Beauregard's  aides  declared 


THE  CLASH:  1861  IS 

immediate  surrender  the  only  possible  alternative 
to  a  bombardment  and  signed  a  note  at  3 :20  a.m. 
giving  Anderson  formal  warning  that  fire  would  be 
opened  in  an  hour. 

Fort  Sumter  stood  about  half  a  mile  inside  the 
harbor  mouth,  fully  exposed  to  the  converging  fire 
of  four  relatively  powerful  batteries,  three  about  a 
mile  away,  the  fourth  nearly  twice  as  far.  At  the 
northern  side  of  the  harbor  mouth  stood  Fort 
Moultrie;  at  the  southern  stood  the  batteries  on 
Cummings  Point;  and  almost  due  west  of  Sumter 
stood  Fort  Johnson.  Near  Moultrie  was  a  four- 
gun  floating  battery  with  an  iron  shield.  A  mile 
northwest  of  Moultrie,  farther  up  the  harbor,  stood 
the  Mount  Pleasant  battery,  nearly  two  miles  off 
from  Sumter.  At  half-past  four,  in  the  first  faint 
light  of  a  gray  morning,  a  sudden  spurt  of  flame 
shot  out  from  Fort  Johnson,  the  dull  roar  of  a 
mortar  floated  through  the  misty  air,  and  the  big 
shell  —  the  first  shot  of  the  real  war  —  soared  up 
at  a  steep  angle,  its  course  distinctly  marked  by  its 
biu-ning  fuse,  and  then  plunged  down  on  Sumter. 
It  was  a  capital  shot,  right  on  the  center  of  the  tar- 
get, and  was  followed  by  an  admirable  burst.  Then 
all  the  converging  batteries  opened  full;  while  the 
whole  population  of  perfervid  Charleston  rushed 


14  CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

out  of  doors  to  throng  their  beautiful  East  Battery, 
a  flagstone  marine  parade  three  miles  in  from  Sum- 
ter, of  which  and  of  the  attacking  batteries  it  had  a 
perfect  view. 

But  Sumter  remained  as  silent  as  the  grave. 
Anderson  decided  not  to  return  the  fire  till  it  was 
broad  daylight.  In  the  meantime  all  ranks  went 
to  breakfast,  which  consisted  entirely  of  water  and 
salt  pork.  Then  the  gun  crews  went  to  action  sta- 
tions and  fired  back  steadily  with  solid  shot.  The 
ironclad  battery  was  an  exasperating  target;  for 
the  shot  bounced  off  it  like  dried  peas.  Moultrie 
seemed  more  vulnerable.  But  appearances  were 
deceptive ;  for  it  was  thoroughly  quilted  with  bales 
of  cotton,  which  the  solid  shot  simply  rammed 
into  an  impenetrable  mass.  Wishing  to  save  his 
men,  in  which  he  was  quite  successful,  Anderson 
had  forbidden  the  use  of  the  shell-guns,  which  w^ere 
mounted  on  the  upper  works  and  therefore  more 
exposed.  Shell  fire  would  have  bm*st  the  bales  and 
set  the  cotton  flaming.  This  was  so  evident  that 
Sergeant  Carmody,  unable  to  stand  such  futile 
practice  any  longer,  quietly  stole  up  to  the  load- 
ed guns  and  fired  them  in  succession.  The  aim 
lacked  final  correction;  and  the  result  was  small, 
except  that  Moultrie,  thinking  itself  in  danger, 


THE  CLASH:  1861  15 

concentrated  all  its  efforts  on  silencing  these  guns. 
The  silencing  seemed  most  effective;  for  Carmody 
could  not  reload  alone,  and  so  his  first  shots  were 
his  last. 

At  nightfall  Sumter  ceased  fire  while  the  Con- 
federates kept  on  slowly  till  daylight.  Next  morn- 
ing the  officers'  quarters  were  set  on  fire  by  red-hot 
shot.  Immediately  the  Confederates  redoubled 
their  efforts.  Inside  Sumter  the  fire  was  creeping 
towards  the  magazine,  the  door  of  which  was  shut 
only  just  in  time.  Then  the  flagstaff  was  shot 
down.  Anderson  ran  his  colors  up  again,  but  the 
situation  was  rapidly  becoming  impossible.  Most 
of  the  worn-out  men  were  fighting  the  flames  while 
a  few  were  firing  at  long  intervals  to  show  they 
would  not  yet  give  in.  This  excited  the  generous 
admiration  of  the  enemy,  who  cheered  the  gallan- 
try of  Sumter  while  sneering  at  the  caution  of  the 
Union  fleet  outside.  The  fact  was,  however,  that 
this  so-called  fleet  was  a  mere  assemblage  of  vessels 
quite  unable  to  fight  the  Charleston  batteries  and 
without  the  slightest  chance  of  saving  Sumter. 

Having  done  his  best  for  the  honor  of  the  flag, 
though  not  a  man  was  killed  within  the  walls,  An- 
derson surrendered  in  the  afternoon.  Charleston 
went  wild  with  joy;  but  applauded  the  generosity 


16  CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

of  Beauregard's  chivalrous  terms.  Next  day,  Sun- 
day the  fourteenth,  Anderson's  little  garrison  sa- 
luted the  Stars  and  Stripes  with  fifty  guns,  and 
then,  with  colors  flying,  marched  down  on  board  a 
transport  to  the  strains  of  Yankee  Doodle. 

Strange  to  say,  after  being  four  years  in  Con- 
federate hands,  Sumter  was  recaptured  by  the 
Union  forces  on  the  anniversary  of  its  surrender. 
It  was  often  bombarded,  though  never  taken,  in 
the  meantime. 

The  fall  of  Sumter  not  only  fired  all  Union  loy- 
alty but  made  Confederates  eager  for  the  fray. 
The  very  next  day  Lincoln  called  for  75,000  three- 
month  volunteers.  Two  days  later  Confederate 
letters  of  marque  were  issued  to  any  privateers  that 
would  prey  on  Union  shipping.  Two  days  later 
again  Lincoln  declared  a  blockade  of  every  port 
from  South  Carolina  round  to  Texas.  Eight  days 
afterwards  he  extended  it  to  North  Carolina  and 
Virginia. 

But  in  the  meantime  Lincoln  had  been  himself 
marooned  in  Washington.  On  the  nineteenth  of 
April,  the  day  he  declared  his  first  blockade,  the 
Sixth  Massachusetts  were  attacked  by  a  mob  in 
Baltimore,  through  which  the  direct  rails  ran  from 
North  to  South.     Baltimore  was  full  of  secession. 


pp^^-^<^Pvi;!^v^;;..m^;@^^^-r'-.  :^:.:--<:  '■-[       :fmf)^ 


GENERAL   ROBERT  E.   LEE 
Photograph.     In  the  collection  of  L.  C.  Handy,  Washington. 


IP? 


16  CAPTAINS  OF  THE  ( 

of  Beauregard's  chivalrous  terms.   Next  tii. 
day  the  fourteenth,  Anderson's  little  gari 
luted  the  Stai's  and  Stripes  with  fifty  gui^^,  ^i.w 
then,  with  colors  flying,  marched  down  on  board  a 
transport  to  the  strains  of  Yankee  Doodle. 

Strange  to  say,  after  being  four  on- 

federate  hands,  Sumter  was  recii: 
Union  forces  on  the  anniversary  <  ,._r 

It  was  often  bombarded:    f] miisl!  Jn 

the  meantime. 

The  fall  of  Suuit'  :     a  all  Union  lov 

The  very  next  day  Lincoln  called  for  75,000  three- 
month  volunteers.     Two  days  later  Conf"  '  —  '- 

letters  of  marque  were  issued  to  any  private  - . 

would  prey  on  Union  shipping.    Two  day«?  lat^r 

again  Lincoln  declared  a  blockad- 

from  South  Carolina  round  to  ivs 

afterwards  he  extended  it  to  Nor 

Virginia. 

But  in  the  meantim  id  been  himself 

marooned  in  Washington.    On  the  nineteenth  of 
April,  the  day  he  declared  his  >ckade,  the 

Sixth  Massachusel  i  by  a  mob  in 

"   '  '  t  rails  r.~"  ^    ■ 


THE  CLASH:  1861  17 

and  the  bloodshed  roused  its  fury.  Maryland  was 
a  border  slave  State  out  of  which  the  District  of 
Columbia  was  carved.  Virginia  had  just  seceded. 
So  when  the  would-be  Confederates  of  Maryland, 
led  by  the  Mayor  of  Baltimore,  began  tearing  up 
rails,  burning  bridges,  and  cutting  the  wires,  the 
Union  Government  found  itself  enisled  in  a  hostile 
sea.  Its  own  forces  abandoned  the  Arsenal  at 
Harper's  Ferry  and  the  Navy  Yard  at  Norfolk. 
The  work  of  demolition  at  Harper's  Ferry  had  to 
be  bungled  off  in  haste,  owing  to  shortness  of  time 
and  lack  of  means.  The  demolition  of  Norfolk 
was  better  done,  and  the  ships  were  sunk  at 
anchor.  But  many  valuable  stores  fell  into  enemy 
hands  at  both  these  Virginian  outposts  of  the  Fed- 
eral forces.  Through  six  long  days  of  dire  suspense 
not  a  ship,  not  a  train,  came  into  Washington.  At 
last,  on  the  twenty-fifth,  the  Seventh  New  York 
got  through,  having  come  south  by  boat  with  the 
Eighth  Massachusetts,  landed  at  Annapolis,  and 
commandeered  a  train  to  run  over  relaid  rails. 
With  them  came  the  news  that  all  the  loyal  North 
was  up,  that  the  Seventh  had  marched  through 
miles  of  cheering  patriots  in  New  York,  and  that 
these  two  fine  regiments  were  only  the  vanguard 
of  a  host. 


18  CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

But  just  a  week  before  Lincoln  experienced  this 
inexpressible  relief  he  lost,  and  his  enemy  won,  a 
single  officer,  who,  according  to  Winfield  Scott, 
was  alone  worth  more  than  fifty  thousand  veteran 
men.  On  the  seventeenth  of  April  Virginia  voted 
for  secession.  On  the  eighteenth  Lee  had  a  long 
confidential  interview  with  his  old  chief,  Winfield 
Scott.  On  the  twentieth  he  resigned,  writing  pri- 
vately to  Scott  at  the  same  time:  "My  resignation 
would  have  been  presented  at  once  but  for  the 
struggle  it  has  cost  me  to  separate  myself  from  a 
service  to  which  I  have  devoted  the  best  years  of 
my  life.  During  the  whole  of  that  time  I  have  ex- 
perienced nothing  but  kindness  from  my  superiors 
and  a  most  cordial  friendship  from  my  comrades. 
I  shall  carry  to  the  grave  the  most  grateful  recollec- 
tions of  your  kind  consideration,  and  your  name 
and  fame  shall  always  be  dear  to  me.  Save  in  the 
defense  of  my  native  State  I  never  desire  again  to 
draw  my  sword." 

The  three  great  motives  which  finally  deter- 
mined his  momentous  course  of  action  were :  first, 
his  aversion  from  taking  any  part  in  coercing  the 
home  folks  of  Virginia;  secondly,  his  belief  in  State 
rights,  tempered  though  it  was  by  admiration  for 
the  Union;  and  thirdly,  his  clear  perception  that 


THE  CLASH:  1861  19 

war  was  now  inevitable,  and  that  defeat  for  the 
South  would  inevitably  mean  a  violent  change  of 
all  the  ways  of  Southern  life,  above  all,  a  change 
imposed  by  force  from  outside,  instead  of  the  grad- 
ual change  he  wished  to  see  effected  from  within. 
He  was  opposed  to  slavery;  and  both  his  own  and 
his  wife's  slaves  had  long  been  free.  Like  his  fa- 
mous lieutenant,  Stonewall  Jackson,  he  was  par- 
ticularly kind  to  the  blacks;  none  of  whom  ever 
wanted  to  leave,  once  they  had  been  domiciled  at 
Arlington,  the  estate  that  came  to  him  through  his 
wife,  Mary  Custis,  great-granddaughter  of  Martha 
Washington.  But,  like  Lincoln  before  the  war,  he 
wished  emancipation  to  come  from  the  slave  States 
themselves,  as  in  time  it  must  have  come,  with  due 
regard  for  compensation. 

On  the  twenty-third  of  this  eventful  April  Lee 
was  given  the  chief  command  of  all  Virginia's 
forces.  Three  days  later  "Joe"  Johnston  took 
command  of  the  Virginians  at  Richmond.  One 
day  later  again  "Stonewall"  Jackson  took  com- 
mand at  Harper's  Ferry.  Johnston  played  a  great 
and  noble  part  tlu-oughout  the  war;  and  we  shall 
meet  him  again  and  again,  down  to  the  very  end. 
But  Jackson  claims  our  first  attention  here. 

Like  all  the  great  leaders  on  both  sides  Jackson 


20  CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

had  been  an  oflBcer  of  regulars.  He  was,  however, 
in  many  ways  unHke  the  army  type.  He  disHked 
society  amusements,  was  awkward,  shy,  reserved, 
and  apparently  recluse.  Moderately  tall,  with 
large  hands  and  feet,  stiff  in  his  movements,  un- 
gainly in  the  saddle,  he  was  a  mere  nobody  in  pub- 
lic estimation  when  the  war  broke  out.  A  few 
brother-officers  had  seen  his  consummate  skill  and 
bravery  as  a  subaltern  in  Mexico;  and  still  fewer 
close  acquaintances  had  seen  his  sterling  qualities 
at  Lexington,  where,  for  ten  years,  he  had  been  a 
professor  at  the  Virginia  Military  Institute.  But 
these  few  were  the  only  ones  who  were  not  sur- 
prised when  this  recluse  of  peace  suddenly  became 
a  very  thunderbolt  of  war  —  Piu-itan  in  soul, 
Cavalier  in  daring:  a  Cromwell  come  to  life  again. 
Harper's  Ferry  was  a  strategic  point  in  north- 
ern Virginia.  It  was  the  gate  to  the  Shenandoah 
Valley  as  well  as  the  point  where  the  Baltimore 
and  Ohio  Railroad  crossed  the  Potomac  some  sixty 
miles  northwest  of  Washington.  Harper's  Ferry 
was  known  by  name  to  North  and  South  through 
John  Brown's  raid  two  years  before.  It  was  now 
coveted  by  Virginia  for  its  Arsenal  as  well  as  for  its 
command  of  road,  rail,  and  water  routes.  The 
plan  to  raid  it  was  arranged  at  Richmond  on  the 


THE  CLASH:  1861  21 

sixteenth  of  April.  But  when  the  raiders  reached 
it  on  the  eighteenth  they  found  it  abandoned  and 
its  Arsenal  in  flames.  The  machine  shops,  however, 
were  saved,  as  well  as  the  metal  parts  of  twenty 
thousand  stand  of  arms.  Then  the  Virginia  militia- 
men and  volunteers  streamed  in,  to  the  number  of 
over  four  thousand.  They  were  a  mere  conglomera- 
tion of  semi-independent  units,  mostly  composed 
of  raw  recruits  under  oflacers  who  themselves  knew 
next  to  nothing.  As  usual  with  such  fledgling 
troops  there  was  no  end  to  the  fuss  and  feathers 
among  the  members  of  the  busybody  staffs,  who 
were  numerous  enough  to  manage  an  army  but 
clumsy  enough  to  spoil  a  platoon.  It  was  said, 
and  not  without  good  reason,  that  there  was  as 
much  gold  lace  at  Harper's  Ferry,  when  the  sun 
was  shining,  as  at  a  grand  review  in  Paris. 

Into  this  gaudy  assemblage  rode  Thomas  Jona- 
than Jackson,  mounted  on  Little  Sorrel,  a  horse  as 
unpretentious  as  himself,  and  dressed  in  his  faded 
old  blue  professor's  uniform  without  one  gleam  of 
gold.  He  had  only  two  staff  oflScers,  both  dressed 
as  plainly  as  himself.  He  was  not  a  major-general, 
nor  even  a  brigadier;  just  a  colonel.  He  held  no 
trumpeting  reviews.  He  made  no  flowery  speeches. 
He  didn't  even  swear.  The  armed  mob  at  Harper's 


22  CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

Ferry  felt  that  they  would  lose  caste  on  Sunday 
afternoons  under  a  commandant  like  this.  Their 
feelings  were  still  more  outraged  when  they  heard 
that  every  officer  above  the  rank  of  captain  was  to 
lose  his  higher  rank,  and  that  all  new  reappoint- 
ments were  to  be  made  on  military  merit  and  direct 
from  Richmond.  Companies  accustomed  to  elect 
their  officers  according  to  the  whim  of  the  moment 
eagerly  joined  the  higher  officers  in  passing  adverse 
resolutions.  But  authorities  who  were  unanimous 
for  Lee  were  not  to  be  shaken  by  such  absurdities 
in  face  of  a  serious  war.  And  when  the  froth  had 
been  blown  off  the  top,  and  the  dregs  drained  out 
of  the  bottom,  the  solid  mass  between,  who  really 
were  sound  patriots,  settled  down  to  work. 

There  was  seven  hours'  drill  every  day  except 
Sunday ;  no  light  task  for  a  mere  armed  mob  grop- 
ing its  ignorant  way,  however  zealously,  towards 
the  organized  efficiency  of  a  real  army.  The  com- 
panies had  to  be  formed  into  workable  battalions, 
the  battalions  into  brigades.  There  was  a  deplor- 
able lack  of  cavalry,  artillery,  engineers,  commis- 
sariat, transport,  medical  services,  and,  above  all, 
staff.  Armament  was  bad;  other  munitions  were 
worse.  There  would  have  been  no  chance  what- 
ever of  holding  Harper's  Ferry  unless  the  Northern 


THE  CLASH:  1861  23 

conglomeration  had  been  even  less  like  a  fighting 
army  than  the  Southern  was. 

Harper's  Ferry  was  not  only  important  in  itself 
but  still  more  important  for  what  it  covered:  the 
wonderfully  fruitful  Shenandoah  Valley,  running 
southwest  a  hundred  and  forty  miles  to  the  neigh- 
borhood of  Lexington,  with  an  average  width  of 
only  twenty -four.  Bounded  on  the  west  by  the 
Alleghanies  and  on  the  east  by  the  long  Blue  Ridge 
this  valley  was  a  regular  covered  way  by  which  the 
Northern  invaders  might  approach,  cut  Virginia 
in  two  (for  West  Virginia  was  then  a  part  of  the 
State)  and,  after  devastating  the  valley  itself  (thus 
destroying  half  the  food-base  of  Virginia)  attack 
eastern  Virginia  through  whichever  gaps  might 
serve  the  purpose  best.  More  than  this,  the  only 
direct  line  from  Richmond  to  the  Mississippi  ran 
just  below  the  southwest  end  of  the  valley,  while 
a  network  of  roads  radiated  from  Winchester 
near  the  northeast  end,  thirty  miles  southwest  of 
Harper's  Ferry. 

Throughout  the  month  of  May  Jackson  went  on 
working  his  men  into  shape  and  watching  the 
enemy,  three  thousand  strong,  at  Chambersburg, 
forty-five  miles  north  of  Harper's  Ferry,  and  twelve 
thousand  strong  farther  north  still.    One  day  he 


24  CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

made  a  magnificent  captm-e  of  rolling  stock  on  the 
twenty-seven  miles  of  double  track  that  centered 
in  Harper's  Ferry.  This  greatly  hampered  the 
accumulation  of  coal  at  Washington  besides  help- 
ing the  railroads  of  the  South.  Destroying  the 
line  was  out  of  the  question,  because  it  ran  through 
West  Virginia  and  Maryland,  both  of  which  he 
hoped  to  see  on  the  Confederate  side.  He  was  him- 
self a  West  Virginian,  born  at  Clarksburg;  and  it 
grieved  him  greatly  when  West  Virginia  stood  by 
the  Union. 

Apart  from  this  he  did  nothing  spectacular.  The 
rest  was  all  just  sheer  hard  work.  He  kept  his  own 
counsel  so  carefully  that  no  one  knew  anything 
about  what  he  would  do  if  the  enemy  advanced. 
Even  the  officers  of  outposts  were  forbidden  to 
notice  or  mention  his  arrival  or  departure  on  his 
constant  tours  of  inspection,  lest  a  longer  look  than 
usual  at  any  point  might  let  an  awkward  inference 
be  drawn.  He  was  the  sternest  of  disciplinarians 
when  the  good  of  the  service  required  it.  But  no 
one  knew  better  that  the  finest  discipline  springs 
from  self-sacrifice  willingly  made  for  a  worthy 
cause;  and  no  one  was  readier  to  help  all  ranks 
along  toward  real  efficiency  in  the  kindest  possible 
way  when  he  saw  they  were  doing  their  best. 


THE  CLASH:  1861  25 

At  the  end  of  May  Johnston  took  over  the  com- 
mand of  the  increasing  force  at  Harper's  Ferry, 
while  Jackson  was  given  the  First  Shenandoah 
Brigade,  a  unit  soon,  like  himself,  to  be  raised  by 
service  into  fame. 

On  the  first  and  third  of  May  Virginia  issued 
calls  for  more  men;  and  on  the  third  Lincoln,  who 
quite  understood  the  signs  of  the  times,  called  for 
men  whose  term  of  service  would  be  three  years 
and  not  three  months. 

Just  a  week  later  Missouri  was  saved  for  the 
Union  by  the  daring  skill  of  two  determined  leaders, 
Francis  P.  Blair,  a  Member  of  Congress  who  be- 
came a  good  major-general,  and  Captain  Nathaniel 
Lyon,  an  excellent  soldier,  who  commanded  the 
little  garrison  of  regulars  at  St.  Louis.  When  Lin- 
coln called  upon  Governor  Claiborne  Jackson  to 
supply  Missouri's  quota  of  three-month  volunteers 
the  Governor  denounced  the  proposed  coercion  as 
"illegal,  unconstitutional,  revolutionary,  inhuman, 
and  diabolical";  and  thereafter  did  his  best  to 
make  Missouri  join  the  South.  But  Blair  and  Lyon 
were  too  quick  for  him.  Blair  organized  the  Home 
Guards,  whom  Lyon  armed  from  the  arsenal.  Lyon 
then  sent  all  the  surplus  arms  and  stores  across  the 


26  CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

river  into  Illinois,  while  he  occupied  the  most  com- 
manding position  near  the  arsenal  with  his  own 
troops,  thus  forestalling  the  Confederates,  under 
Brigadier-General  D.  M.  Frost,  who  was  now 
forced  to  establish  Camp  Jackson  in  a  far  less 
favorable  place.  So  vigorously  had  Blair  and 
Lyon  worked  that  they  had  armed  thousands  while 
Frost  had  only  armed  hundreds.  But  when  Frost 
received  siege  guns  and  mortars  from  farther  south 
Lyon  felt  the  time  had  come  for  action. 

Lyon  was  a  born  leader,  though  Grant  and  Sher- 
man (then  in  St.  Louis  as  junior  ex-officers,  quite 
unknown  to  fame)  were  almost  the  only  men,  apart 
from  Blair,  to  see  any  signs  of  preeminence  in  this 
fiery  little  red-headed,  weather-beaten  captain, 
who  kept  dashing  about  the  arsenal,  with  his 
pockets  full  of  papers,  making  sure  of  every  detail 
connected  with  the  handful  of  regulars  and  the 
thousands  of  Home  Guards. 

On  the  ninth  of  May  Lyon  borrowed  an  old  dress 
from  Blair's  mother-in-law,  completing  the  dis- 
guise with  a  thickly  veiled  sunbonnet,  and  drove 
through  Camp  Jackson.  That  night  he  and  Blair 
attended  a  council  of  war,  at  which,  overcoming  all 
opposition,  answering  all  objections,  and  making 
all  arrangements,  they  laid  their  plans  for  the 


THE  CLASH:  1861  27 

morrow.  When  Lyon's  seven  thousand  surrounded 
Frost's  seven  hundred  the  Confederates  surren- 
dered at  discretion  and  were  marched  as  prisoners 
through  St.  Louis.  There  were  many  Southern 
sympathizers  among  the  crowds  in  the  streets ;  one 
of  them  fired  a  pistol ;  and  the  Home  Guards  fired 
back,  kilHng  several  women  and  children  by  mis- 
take. This  unfortunate  incident  hardened  many 
neutrals  and  even  Unionists  against  the  Union 
forces;  so  much  so  that  Sterling  Price,  a  Unionist 
and  former  governor,  became  a  Confederate  gen- 
eral, whose  field  for  recruiting  round  Jefferson  City 
on  the  Missouri  promised  a  good  crop  of  enemies 
to  the  Union  cause. 

Lyon  and  Blair  wished  to  march  against  Price 
immediately  and  smash  every  hostile  force  while 
still  in  the  act  of  forming.  But  General  Harney, 
who  commanded  the  Department  of  the  West, 
returned  to  St.  Louis  the  day  after  the  shooting 
and  made  peace  instead  of  war  with  Price.  By 
the  end  of  the  month,  however,  Lincoln  removed 
Harney  and  promoted  Lyon  in  his  place;  where- 
upon Price  and  Governor  Jackson  at  once  prepared 
to  fight.  Then  sundry  neutrals,  of  the  gabbling 
kind  who  think  talk  enough  will  settle  anything, 
induced  the  implacables  to  meet  in  St.  Louis.    The 


28  CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

conference  was  ended  by  Lyon's  declaration  that 
he  would  see  every  Missourian  under  the  sod  before 
he  would  take  any  orders  from  the  State  about  any 
Federal  matter,  however  small.  "  This, "  he  said  in 
conclusion,  "means  war."    And  it  did. 

Again  a  single  week  suflSced  for  the  striking  of 
the  blow.  The  conference  was  held  on  the  eleventh 
of  June.  On  the  f oiu'teenth  Lyon  reached  Jefferson 
City  only  to  find  that  the  Governor  had  decamped 
for  Boonville,  still  higher  up  the  Missouri,  Here, 
on  the  seventeenth,  Lyon  attacked  him  with 
greatly  superior  numbers  and  skill,  defeated  him 
utterly,  and  sent  him  flying  south  with  only  a  few 
hundred  followers  left.  Boonville  was,  in  itself,  a 
very  small  affair  indeed.  But  it  had  immense  re- 
sults. Lyon  had  seized  the  best  strategic  point  of 
rail  and  river  junction  on  the  Mississippi  by  hold- 
ing St.  Louis.  He  had  also  secured  supremacy  in 
arms,  munitions,  and  morale.  By  turning  the 
Governor  out  of  Jefferson  City,  the  State  capital, 
he  had  deprived  the  Confederates  of  the  prestige 
and  convenience  of  an  acknowledged  headquarters. 
Now,  by  defeating  him  at  Boonville  and  driving 
his  forces  south  in  headlong  flight  he  had  prac- 
tically made  the  whole  Missouri  River  a  Federal 
line  of  comuumication  as  well  as  a  barrier  between 


THE  CLASH:  1861  29 

would-be  Confederates  to  the  north  and  south  of  it. 
More  than  this,  the  possession  of  Boonville  struck 
a  fatal  blow  at  Confederate  recruiting  and  organi- 
zation throughout  the  whole  of  that  strategic  area; 
for  Boonville  was  the  center  to  which  pro-Southern 
Missourians  were  flocking.  The  tide  of  battle  was 
to  go  against  the  Federals  at  Wilson's  Creek  in  the 
southwest  of  the  State,  and  even  at  Lexington 
on  the  Missouri,  as  we  shall  presently  see;  but 
this  was  only  the  breaking  of  the  last  Confeder- 
ate waves.  As  a  State,  Missouri  was  lost  to  the 
South  already. 

In  Kentucky,  the  next  border  State,  opinions 
were  likewise  divided;  and  Kentuckians  fought 
each  other  with  help  from  both  sides.  Anderson,  of 
Fort  Sumter  fame,  was  appointed  to  the  Kentucky 
command  in  May.  But  here  the  crisis  did  not 
occur  for  months,  while  a  border  campaign  was 
already  being  fought  in  West  Virginia. 

West  Vii'ginia,  which  became  a  separate  State 
during  the  war,  was  strongly  Federal,  like  eastern 
Tennessee.  These  Federal  parts  of  two  Confed- 
erate States  formed  a  wedge  dangerous  to  the  whole 
South,  especially  to  Virginia  and  the  Carolinas. 
Each  side  therefore  tried  to  control  this  area  itself. 
The  Federals,  under  McClellan,  of  whom  we  shall 


30  CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

soon  hear  more,  had  two  Hnes  of  invasion  into  West 
Virginia,  both  based  on  the  Ohio.  The  northern 
converged  by  rail,  from  WheeHng  and  Parkersburg, 
on  Grafton,  the  only  junction  in  West  Virginia. 
The  southern  ran  up  the  Great  Kanawha,  with 
good  navigation  to  Charleston  and  water  enough 
for  small  craft  on  to  Gauley  Bridge,  which  was  the 
strategic  point. 

In  May  the  Confederates  cut  the  line  near  Graf- 
ton. As  this  broke  direct  communication  between 
the  West  and  Washington,  McClellan  sent  forces 
from  which  two  flying  columns,  three  thousand 
strong,  converged  on  Philippi,  fifteen  miles  south 
of  Grafton,  and  surprised  a  thousand  Confederates. 
These  thereupon  retired,  with  little  loss,  to  Beverly, 
thirty  miles  farther  south  still.  Here  there  was  a 
combat  at  Rich  Mountain  on  the  eleventh  of  July. 
The  Confederates  again  retreated,  losing  General 
Garnett  in  a  skirmish  the  following  day.  This 
ended  McClellan 's  own  campaign  in  West  Virginia. 

But  the  Kanawha  campaign,  which  lasted  till 
November,  had  only  just  begun,  with  Rosecrans 
as  successor  to  McClellan  (who  had  been  recalled 
to  Washington  for  very  high  command)  and  with 
General  Jacob  D.  Cox  leading  the  force  against 
Gauley.    The  Confederates  did  all  they  could  to 


THE  CLASH:  1861  31 

keep  their  precarious  foothold.  They  sent  political 
chiefs,  like  Henry  A.  Wise,  ex-Governor  of  Virginia, 
and  John  B.  Floyd,  the  late  Federal  Secretary  of 
War,  both  of  whom  were  now  Confederate  briga- 
diers. They  even  sent  Lee  himself  in  general  com- 
mand. But,  confronted  by  superior  forces  in  a 
difficult  and  thoroughly  hostile  country,  they  at  last 
retired  east  of  the  Alleghanies,  which  thenceforth 
became  the  frontier  of  two  warring  States. 

The  campaign  in  West  Virginia  was  a  foregone 
conclusion.  It  was  not  marked  by  any  real  bat- 
tles; and  there  was  no  scope  for  exceptional  skill 
of  the  higher  kind  on  either  side.  But  it  made 
McClellan's  bubble  reputation. 

McClellan  was  an  ex-captain  of  United  States 
Engineers  who  had  done  very  well  at  West  Point, 
had  distinguished  himself  in  Mexico,  had  repre- 
sented the  American  army  with  the  Allies  in  the 
Crimea,  had  written  a  good  official  report  on  his 
observations  there,  had  become  manager  of  a  big 
railroad  after  leaving  the  service,  and  had  so  im- 
pressed people  with  his  ability  and  modesty  on  the 
outbreak  of  war  that  his  appointment  to  the  chief 
command  in  West  Virginia  was  hailed  with  the  ut- 
most satisfaction.  Then  came  the  two  affairs  at 
Philippi  and  Rich  Mountain,  the  first  of  which 


32  CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

was  planned  and  carried  out  by  other  men,  while 
the  second  was,  if  anything,  spoiled  by  him- 
self; for  here,  as  afterwards  on  a  vastly  greater 
scene  of  action,  he  failed  to  strike  home  at  the 
critical  moment. 

Yet  though  he  failed  in  arms  he  won  by  proclama- 
tions; so  much  so,  in  fact,  that  Words  not  Deeds 
might  well  have  been  his  motto.  He  began  with  a 
bombastic  address  to  the  inhabitants  and  ended 
with  another  to  his  troops,  whom  he  congratulated 
on  having  "annihilated  two  armies,  commanded  by 
educated  and  experienced  soldiers,  intrenched  in 
mountain  fastnesses  fortified  at  their  leisure." 

It  disastrously  happened  that  the  Union  public 
were  hungering  for  heroes  at  this  particular  time 
and  that  Union  journalists  were  itching  to  write 
one  up  to  the  top  of  their  bent.  So  all  McClellan's 
tinsel  was  counted  out  for  gold  before  an  avaricious 
mob  of  undiscriminating  readers ;  and  when,  at  the 
height  of  the  publicity  campaign,  the  Government 
wanted  to  retrieve  Bull  Run  they  turned  to  the 
"Man  of  Destiny"  who  had  been  given  the  nois- 
iest advertisement  as  the  "Young  Napoleon  of 
the  West."  McClellan  had  many  good  qualities 
for  organization,  and  even  some  for  strategy. 
An  excited  press  and  public,  however,  would  not 


THE  CLASH:  1861  S3 

acclaim  him  for  what  he  was  but  for  what  he 
most  decidedly  was  not. 

Meanwhile,  before  McClellan  went  to  Washing- 
ton and  Lee  to  West  Virginia,  the  main  Union  army- 
had  been  disastrously  defeated  by  the  main  Con- 
federate army  at  Bull  Run,  on  that  vital  ground 
which  lay  between  the  rival  capitals. 

In  April  Lincoln  had  called  for  three-month 
volunteers.  In  May  the  term  of  service  for  new 
enlistments  was  three  years.  In  June  the  military 
chiefs  at  Washington  were  vainly  doing  all  that 
military  men  could  do  to  make  something  like  the 
beginnings  of  an  army  out  of  the  conglomerating 
mass.  Winfield  Scott,  the  veteran  General-in- 
Chief,  rightly  revered  by  the  whole  service  as  a 
most  experienced,  farsighted,  and  practical  man, 
was  ably  assisted  by  W.  T.  Sherman  and  Irvin 
McDowell.  But  civilian  interference  ruined  all. 
Even  Lincoln  had  not  yet  learned  the  quintessen- 
tial difference  between  that  civil  control  by  which 
the  fighting  services  are  so  rightly  made  the  real 
servants  of  the  whole  people  and  that  civilian  inter- 
ference which  is  very  much  the  same  as  if  a  land- 
lubber owning  a  ship  should  grab  the  wheel  re- 
peatedly in  the  middle  of  a  storm.  Simon  Cameron, 


34  CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

then  Secretary  of  War,  was  good  enough  as  a  party 
poHtician,  but  all  thumbs  when  fumbling  with  the 
armies  in  the  field.  The  other  members  of  the 
Cabinet  had  war  nostrums  of  their  own ;  and  every 
politician  with  a  pull  did  what  he  could  to  use  it. 
Behind  all  these  surged  a  clamorous  press  and  an 
excited  people,  both  patriotic  and  well  meaning; 
but  both  wholly  ignorant  of  war,  and  therefore 
generating  a  public  opinion  that  forced  the  not  un- 
willing Government  to  order  an  armed  mob  "on  to 
Richmond"  before  it  had  the  slightest  chance  of 
learning  how  to  be  an  army. 

The  Congi-ess  that  met  on  the  Fourth  of  July 
voted  five  hundi'ed  thousand  men  and  two  hun- 
dred and  fifty  million  dollars.  This  showed  that 
the  greatness  of  the  war  was  beginning  to  be  seen. 
But  the  men,  the  money,  and  the  Glorious  Fourth 
were  so  blurred  together  in  the  public  mind  that 
the  distinction  between  a  vote  in  Congress  and  its 
effect  upon  some  future  battlefield  was  never  real- 
ized. The  result  was  a  new  access  of  zeal  for  driving 
McDowell  "on  to  Richmond."  Making  the  best 
of  a  bad  business,  Scott  had  already  begun  his 
preparations  for  the  premature  advance. 

By  the  end  of  May  Confederate  pickets  had  been 
in  sight  of  Washington,  while  McDowell,  crossing 


THE  CLASH:  1861  35 

the  Potomac,  was  faced  by  his  friend  of  old  West 
Point  and  Mexican  days,  General  Beauregard, 
fresh  from  the  captm-e  of  Fort  Sumter.  By  the  be- 
ginning of  July  General  Patterson,  a  veteran  of 
"  1812  "  and  Mexico,  was  in  command  up  the  Poto- 
mac near  Harper's  Ferry.  He  was  opposed  by 
"Joe"  Johnston,  who  had  taken  over  that  Con- 
federate command  from  "Stonewall"  Jackson. 
Down  the  Potomac  and  Chesapeake  Bay  there  was 
nothing  to  oppose  the  Union  navy.  General  Ben- 
jamin Butler,  threatening  Richmond  in  flank,  along 
the  lower  Chesapeake,  was  watched  by  the  Con- 
federates Huger  and  Magruder.  Meanwhile,  as 
we  have  seen  already,  the  West  Virginian  campaign 
was  in  full  swing,  with  superior  Federal  forces 
under  McClellan. 

Thus  the  general  situation  in  July  was  that  the 
whole  of  northeastern  Virginia  was  faced  by  a  semi- 
circle of  superior  forces  which  began  at  the  Kana- 
wha River,  ran  northeast  to  Grafton,  then  north- 
east to  Cumberland,  then  along  the  Potomac  to 
Chesapeake  Bay  and  on  to  Fortress  Monroe.  From 
the  Kanawha  to  Grafton  there  were  only  roads. 
From  Grafton  to  Cumberland  there  was  rail  as 
well.  From  Cumberland  to  Washington  there  were 
road,  rail,  river,  and  canal.    From  Washington  to 


36  CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

Fortress  Monroe  there  was  water  fit  for  any  fleet. 
The  Union  armies  along  this  semicircle  were  not 
only  twice  as  numerous  as  the  Confederates  facing 
them  but  they  were  backed  by  a  sea-power,  both 
naval  and  mercantile,  which  the  Confederates 
could  not  begin  to  challenge,  much  less  overcome. 
Lee  was  the  military  adviser  to  the  Confederate 
Government  at  Richmond  as  Scott  then  was  to 
the  Union  Government  at  Washington. 

Such  was  the  central  scene  of  action,  where  the 
first  great  battle  of  the  war  was  fought.  The 
Union  forces  were  based  on  the  Potomac  from 
Washington  to  Harper's  Ferry.  The  Confederates 
faced  them  from  Bull  Run  to  Winchester,  which 
points  were  nearly  sixty  miles  apart  by  road  and 
rail.  The  Union  forces  were  fifty  thousand  strong, 
the  Confederate  thirty-three  thousand.  The  Union 
problem  was  how  to  keep  "Joe"  Johnston  in  the 
Winchester  position  by  threatening  or  actually 
making  an  invasion  of  the  Shenandoah  Valley 
with  Patterson's  superior  force,  while  McDowell's 
superior  force  attacked  or  turned  Beauregard's 
position  at  Bull  Run.  The  Confederate  problem 
was  how  to  give  Patterson  the  slip  and  reach  Bull 
Run  in  time  to  meet  McDowell  with  an  equal  force. 
The  Confederates  had  the  advantage  of  interior 


THE  CLASH:  1861  37 

lines  both  here  and  in  the  semicircle  as  a  whole, 
though  the  Union  forces  enjoyed  in  general  much 
better  means  of  transportation.  The  Confederates 
enjoyed  better  control  from  government  head- 
quarters, where  the  Cabinet  mostly  had  the  sense 
to  trust  in  Lee.  Scott,  on  the  other  hand,  was  tied 
down  by  orders  to  defend  Washington  by  purely 
defensive  means  as  well  as  by  the  "on  to  Rich- 
mond" march.  Patterson  was  therefore  obliged 
to  watch  the  Federal  back  door  at  Harper's  Ferry 
as  well  as  the  Confederate  side  doors  up  the  Shen- 
andoah :  an  impossible  task,  on  exterior  lines,  with 
the  kind  of  force  he  had.  The  civilian  chiefs  at 
Washington  did  not  see  that  the  best  of  all  defense 
was  to  destroy  the  enemy's  means  of  destroying 
them,  and  that  his  greatest  force  of  fighting  men, 
not  any  particular  place,  should  always  be  their 
main  objective. 

On  the  fourteenth  of  June  Johnston  had  de- 
stroyed everything  useful  to  the  enemy  at  Harper's 
Ferry  and  retired  to  Winchester.  On  the  twentieth 
Jackson's  brigade  marched  on  Martinsburg  to 
destroy  the  workshops  of  the  Baltimore  and  Ohio 
Railway  and  to  support  the  three  hundred  troopers 
under  J.  E.  B.  Stuart,  who  was  so  soon  to  be  the 
greatest  of  cavalry  commanders  on  the  Confederate 


38  CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

side.  Unknown  at  twenty-nine,  killed  at  thirty- 
one,  "Jeb"  Stuart  was  a  Virginian  ex-officer  of 
United  States  Dragoons,  trained  in  frontier  fight- 
ing, and  the  perfect  type  of  what  a  cavalry  com- 
mander should  be:  tall,  handsome,  splendidly 
supple  and  strong,  hawk-eyed  and  lion-hearted, 
quick,  bold,  determined,  and  inspiring,  yet  always 
full  of  knowledge  and  precaution  too;  indefatigable 
at  all  times,  and  so  persistent  in  carrying  out  a  plan 
that  the  enemy  could  no  more  shake  him  off  than 
they  could  escape  their  shadows. 

On  the  second  of  July  the  first  brush  took  place 
at  Falling  Waters,  five  miles  south  of  the  Potomac, 
where  Jackson  came  into  touch  with  Patterson's 
advanced  guard.  As  Jackson  withdrew  his  hand- 
ful of  Virginian  infantry  the  Federal  cavab-y  came 
clattering  down  the  turnpike  and  were  met  by  a 
single  shot  from  a  Confederate  gun  that  smashed 
the  head  of  their  column  and  sent  the  others  flying. 
Meanwhile  Stuart,  who  had  been  reconnoitering, 
came  upon  a  company  of  Federal  infantry  rest- 
ing in  a  field.  Galloping  among  them  suddenly 
he  shouted,  "Throw  down  your  arms  or  you  are 
all  dead  men!"  Whereupon  they  all  threw  down 
their  arms ;  and  his  troopers  led  them  off.  Patter- 
son, badly  served  by  his  very  raw  staff,  reported 


THE  CLASH:  1861  39 

Jackson's  little  vanguard  as  being  precisely  ten 
times  stronger  than  it  was.  He  pushed  out  cau- 
tiously to  right  and  left;  and  when  he  tried  to  en- 
gage again  he  found  that  Jackson  had  withdrawn. 
Falling  Waters  was  microscopically  small  as  a 
fight.  But  it  served  to  raise  Confederate  morale 
and  depress  the  Federals  correspondingly. 

Patterson  occupied  Martinsburg,  while  Johnston, 
drawn  up  in  line  of  battle,  awaited  his  further  ad- 
vance four  days  before  retiring.  Then,  with  his 
fourteen  thousand,  Patterson  advanced  again, 
stood  irresolute  under  distracting  orders  from  the 
Government  in  Washington,  and  finally  went  to 
Charlestown  on  the  seventeenth  of  July  —  almost 
back  to  Harper's  Ferry.  Johnston,  with  his  eleven 
thousand,  now  stood  fast  at  Winchester,  fifteen 
miles  southwest,  while  Stuart,  like  a  living  screen, 
moved  to  and  fro  between  them. 

Meanwhile  McDowell's  thirty-six  thousand  had 
marched  past  the  President  with  bands  playing 
and  colors  flying  amid  a  scene  of  great  enthusiasm. 
The  press  campaign  was  at  its  height;  so  was  the 
speechifying;  and  ninety-nine  people  out  of  every 
hundred  thought  Beauregard's  twenty-two  thou- 
sand at  Bull  Run  would  be  defeated  in  a  way 
that  would  be  sure  to  make  the  South  give  in. 


40  CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

McDowell  had  between  two  and  three  thousand  reg- 
ulars: viz.,  seven  troops  of  cavalry,  nine  batteries 
of  artillery,  eight  companies  of  infantry,  and  a  little 
battalion  of  marines.  Then  there  was  the  immense 
paper  army  voted  on  the  Glorious  Fourth.  And 
here,  for  the  general  public  to  admire,  was  a  collec- 
tion of  armed  and  uniformed  men  that  members  of 
Congress  and  writers  in  the  press  united  in  calling 
one  of  the  best  armies  the  world  had  ever  seen. 
Moreover,  the  publicity  campaign  was  kept  up 
unflaggingly  till  the  very  clash  of  arms  began.  Re- 
porters marched  along  and  sent  off  reams  of  copy. 
Congressmen,  and  even  ladies,  graced  the  occasion 
in  every  way  they  could.  "The  various  regiments 
were  brilliantly  uniformed  according  to  the  aes- 
thetic taste  of  peace, "  wrote  General  Fry,  then  an 
officer  on  McDowell's  staff,  and  "dm-ing  the  nine- 
teenth and  twentieth  the  bivouacs  at  Centreville, 
almost  within  cannon  range  of  the  enemy,  were 
thronged  with  visitors,  official  and  unofficial,  who 
came  in  carriages  from  Washington,  were  under  no 
military  restraint,  and  passed  to  and  fro  among 
the  troops  as  they  pleased,  giving  the  scene  the 
appearance  of  a  monster  military  picnic." 

Had  McDowell  been  able  to  attack  on  either  of 
these  two  days  he  must  have  won.    But  previous 


THE  CLASH:  1861  41 

Governments  had  never  given  the  army  the  means 
of  making  proper  surveys;  so  here,  within  a  day's 
march  of  the  Federal  capital,  the  maps  were  worth- 
less for  military  use.  Information  had  to  be  gleaned 
by  reconnaissance ;  and  reconnaissance  takes  time, 
especially  without  trustworthy  guides,  sufficient 
cavalry,  and  a  proper  staff.  Moreover,  the  army 
was  all  parts  and  no  whole,  through  no  fault  of 
McDowell's  or  of  his  military  chiefs.  The  three- 
month  volunteers,  whose  term  of  service  was  nearly 
over,  had  not  learned  their  drill  as  individuals 
before  being  herded  into  companies,  battalions, 
and  brigades,  of  course  becoming  more  and  more 
inefficient  as  the  units  grew  more  and  more  com- 
plex. Of  the  still  more  essential  discipline  they 
naturally  knew  still  less.  There  was  no  lack  of 
courage;  for  these  were  the  same  breed  of  men  as 
those  with  whom  Washington  had  won  immortal 
fame,  the  same  as  those  with  whom  both  Grant 
and  Lee  were  yet  to  win  it.  But,  as  Napoleon  used 
to  say,  mere  men  are  not  the  same  as  soldiers. 
Nor  are  armed  mobs  the  same  as  armies. 

The  short  march  to  the  front  was  both  confused 
and  demoralizing.  No  American  officer  had  ever 
had  the  chance  even  of  seeing,  much  less  handling, 
thirty-six  thousand  men  under  arms.    This  force 


42  CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

was  followed  by  an  immense  and  unwieldy  train  of 
supplies,  manned  by  wholly  undisciplined  civilian 
drivers;  while  other,  and  quite  superfluous,  civil- 
ians clogged  every  movement  and  made  confusion 
worse  confounded.  "The  march,"  says  Sherman, 
who  commanded  a  brigade,  "demonstrated  little 
save  the  general  laxity  of  discipline;  for,  with  all 
my  personal  efforts,  I  could  not  prevent  the  men 
from  straggling  for  water,  blackberries,  or  anything 
on  the  way  they  fancied."  In  the  whole  of  the  first 
long  summer's  day,  the  sixteenth  of  July,  the  army 
only  marched  six  miles ;  and  it  took  the  better  part 
of  the  seventeenth  to  herd  its  stragglers  back  again. 
** I  wished  them,  "says McDowell, " to  go  to  Centre- 
ville  the  second  day  [only  another  six  miles  out] 
but  the  men  were  foot-weary,  not  so  much  by  the 
distance  marched  as  by  the  time  they  had  been  on 
foot."  That  observant  private,  Warren  Lee  Goss, 
has  told  us  how  hard  it  is  to  soldier  suddenly. 
"My  canteen  banged  against  my  bayonet;  both 
tin  cup  and  bayonet  badly  interfered  with  the  butt 
of  my  musket,  while  my  cartridge-box  and  haver- 
sack were  constantly  flopping  up  and  down  — 
the  whole  jangling  like  loose  harness  and  chains  on 
a  runaway  horse."  The  weather  was  hot.  The 
roads  were  dusty.    And  many  a  man  threw  away 


THE  CLASH:  1861  43 

parts  of  his  kit  for  which  he  suffered  later  on. 
There  was  food  in  superabundance.  But,  with  that 
unwieldy  and  grossly  undipciplined  supply-and- 
transport  service,  the  men  and  their  food  never 
came  together  at  the  proper  time. 

Early  on  the  eighteenth  McDowell,  whose  own 
work  was  excellent  all  through,  pushed  forward  a 
brigade  against  Blackburn's  Ford,  toward  the  Con- 
federate right,  in  order  to  distract  attention  from 
the  real  objective,  which  was  to  be  the  turning  of 
the  left.  The  Confederate  outposts  fell  back  be- 
yond the  ford.  The  Federal  brigade  followed  on; 
when  suddenly  sharp  volleys  took  it  in  front  and 
flank.  The  opposing  brigade,  under  Longstreet 
(of  whom  we  shall  often  hear  again),  had  lain  con- 
cealed and  sprung  its  trap  quite  neatly.  Most  of 
the  Federals  behaved  extremely  well  imder  these 
untoward  circumstances.  But  one  whole  battery 
and  another  whole  battalion,  whose  term  of  service 
expired  that  afternoon,  were  officially  reported  as 
having  "moved  to  the  rear  to  the  sound  of  the 
enemy's  cannon."  Thereafter,  as  military  units, 
they  simply  ceased  to  exist. 

At  one  o'clock  in  the  morning  of  this  same 
day  Johnston  received  a  telegram  at  Winchester, 
from  Richmond,  warning  him  that  McDowell  was 


44  CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

advancing  on  Bull  Run,  with  the  evident  intention 
of  seizing  Manassas  Junction,  which  would  cut  the 
Confederate  rail  communication  with  the  Shenan- 
doah Valley  and  so  prevent  all  chance  of  imme- 
diate concentration  at  Bull  Run.  Johnston  saw 
that  the  hour  had  come.  It  could  not  have  come 
before,  as  Lee  and  the  rest  had  foreseen;  because 
an  earlier  concentration  at  Bull  Run  would  have 
drawn  the  two  superior  Federal  forces  together  on 
the  selfsame  spot.  There  was  still  some  risk  about 
giving  Patterson  the  slip.  True,  his  three-month 
special-constable  array  was  semi-mutinous  al- 
ready; and  its  term  of  service  had  only  a  few  more 
days  to  run.  True,  also,  that  the  men  had  cause  for 
grievance.  They  were  all  without  pay,  and  some 
of  them  v/ere  reported  as  being  still  "without 
pants."  But,  despite  such  drawbacks,  a  resolute 
attack  by  Patterson's  fourteen  thousand  could 
have  at  least  held  fast  Johnston's  eleven  thou- 
sand, who  were  mostly  little  better  off  in  military 
ways.  Patterson,  however,  sufiFered  from  dis- 
tracting orders,  and  that  was  his  undoing.  John- 
ston, admirably  screened  by  Stuart,  drew  quiet- 
ly away,  leaving  his  sick  at  Winchester  and 
raising  the  spirits  of  his  whole  command  by  tell- 
ing them   that  Beauregard   was  in  danger  and 


THE  CLASH:  1861  45 

that  they  were  to  "make  a  forced  march  to  save 
the  country." 

Straining  every  nerve  they  stepped  out  gallantly 
and  covered  mile  after  mile  till  they  reached  the 
Shenandoah,  forded  it,  and  crossed  the  Blue  Ridge 
at  Ashby's  Gap.  But  lack  of  training  and  march 
discipline  told  increasingly  against  them.  "The 
discouragement  of  that  day's  march,"  said  John- 
ston, "is  indescribable.  Frequent  and  unreason- 
able delays  caused  so  slow  a  rate  of  marching  as  to 
make  me  despair  of  joining  General  Beauregard  in 
time  to  aid  him."  Even  the  First  Brigade,  with  all 
the  advantages  of  leading  the  march  and  of  having 
learnt  the  rudiments  of  drill  and  discipline,  was 
exhausted  by  a  day's  work  that  it  could  have 
romped  through  later  on.  Jackson  himself  stood 
guard  alone  till  dawn  while  all  his  soldiers  slept. 

As  Jackson's  men  marched  down  to  take  the 
train  at  Piedmont,  Stuart  gayly  trotted  past, 
having  left  Patterson  still  in  ignorance  that  John- 
ston's force  had  gone.  By  four  in  the  afternoon  of 
the  nineteenth  Jackson  was  detraining  at  Manas- 
sas. But,  as  we  shall  presently  see,  it  was  nearly 
two  whole  days  before  the  last  of  Johnston's  bri- 
gades arrived,  just  in  time  for  the  crisis  of  the 
battle.     When  Johnston  had  joined  Beauregard 


46  CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

their  united  effective  total  was  thirty  thousand 
men.  There  had  been  a  wastage  of  three  thousand. 
McDowell  also  had  no  more  than  thirty  thousand 
effectives  present  on  the  twenty-first;  for  he  left 
one  division  at  Centreville  and  lost  the  rest  by 
straggling  and  by  the  way  in  which  the  battery  and 
battalion  already  mentioned  had  "claimed  their 
discharge"  at  Blackburn's  Ford.  Throughout  the 
nineteenth  and  twentieth,  while,  sorely  against  his 
will,  the  Federals  were  having  their  "monster  mili- 
tary picnic"  at  Centreville,  he  was  reconnoitering 
his  constantly  increasing  enemy  under  the  greatest 
diflSculties,  with  his  ill-trained  staff,  bad  maps,  and 
lack  of  proper  guides. 

Lee  had  chosen  six  miles  of  Bull  Run  as  a  good 
defensive  position.  But  Beauregard  intended  to 
attack,  hoping  to  profit  by  the  Federal  disjointed- 
ness.  Consequently  none  of  the  eight  fords  were 
strongly  defended  except  at  Union  Mills  on  the 
extreme  right  and  the  Stone  Bridge  on  the  extreme 
left,  where  the  turnpike  from  Centreville  to  War- 
renton  crossed  the  Run.  Bull  Run  itself  was  a  con- 
siderable obstacle,  having  fairly  high  banks  and 
running  along  the  Confederate  front  like  the  ditch 
of  a  fortress.  Three  miles  in  rear  stood  Manassas 
Junction  on  a  moderate  plateau  intersected  by 


THE  CLASH:  1861  47 

several  creeks.  The  most  important  of  these  creeks, 
Young's  Branch,  joined  Bull  Run  on  the  extreme 
left,  near  the  Stone  Bridge  and  Warrenton  turn- 
pike, after  flowing  through  the  little  valley  between 
the  Henry  Hill  and  Matthews  Hill.  Three  miles 
in  front,  across  Bull  Run,  stood  Centreville,  the 
Federal  camp  and  field  base  during  the  battle. 

Sunday,  July  21,  1861,  was  a  beautiful  mid- 
summer day.  Both  armies  were  stirring  soon  after 
dawn.  But  a  miscarriage  of  orders  delayed  the 
Confederate  offensive  so  much  that  the  initiative 
of  attack  passed  to  the  Federals,  who  advanced 
against  the  Stone  Bridge  shortly  after  six.  This 
attack,  however,  though  made  by  a  whole  division 
against  a  single  small  brigade,  was  immediately 
recognized  as  a  mere  feint  when,  two  hours  later, 
Evans,  commanding  the  Confederate  brigade,  saw 
dense  clouds  of  dust  rising  above  the  woods  on  his 
left  front,  where  the  road  crossed  Sudley  Springs, 
nearly  two  miles  beyond  his  own  left.  Perceiving 
that  this  new  development  must  be  a  regular  at- 
tempt to  turn  the  whole  Confederate  left  by  cross- 
ing Bull  Run,  he  sent  back  word  to  Beauregard, 
posted  some  men  to  hold  the  Stone  Bridge,  and 
marched  the  rest  to  crown  the  Matthews  Hill,  fac- 
ing Sudley  Springs  a  mile  away.    Meanwhile  four 


48  CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

of  "Joe"  Johnston's  five  Shenandoah  brigades  — 
Bee's,  Bartow's,  Bonham's,  and  Jackson's  —  had 
been  coming  over  from  the  right  reserve  to  strength- 
en Evans  at  the  Bridge.  As  the  great  Federal 
tm-ning  movement  developed  against  the  Con- 
federate left  these  brigades  followed  Evans  and 
were  themselves  followed  by  other  troops,  till  the 
real  battle  raged  not  along  Bull  Run  but  across  the 
Matthews  Hill  and  Henry  Hill. 

Forming  the  new  front  at  right  angles  to  the  old, 
so  as  to  attack  and  defend  the  Confederate  left  on 
the  Matthews  and  Henry  Hills,  caused  much  con- 
fusion on  both  sides;  but  more  on  the  Federal, 
as  the  Confederates  knew  the  ground  better.  By 
eleven  Bee  had  reached  Evans  and  sent  word  back 
to  hurry  Bartow  on.  But  the  Federals,  having 
double  numbers  and  a  great  preponderance  in  guns, 
soon  drove  the  Confederates  off  the  Matthews  Hill. 
As  the  Confederates  recrossed  Young's  Branch  and 
climbed  the  Henry  Hill  the  regular  artillery  of  the 
Federals  limbered  up  smartly,  galloped  across  the 
Matthews  Hill,  and  from  its  nearer  slope  plied  the 
retreating  Confederates  on  the  opposite  slope  with 
admirably  served  shell.  Under  this  fire  the  raw 
Confederates  ran  in  confusion,  while  their  un- 
covered guns  galloped  back  to  find  a  new  position. 


GENERAL    T.   J.    (STONETf^ALL)   JACKSON 
Photograph.     In  the  collection  of  L.  (J.  Handy,  Washington. 


of       »jih:       .iu;  I  acton's  fivc  Shcnanclr;  -^     *  ■        ivlCA  — 

Bee's,  Bartow's,  Bonham's,  and  J  i.  —  had 

been  coming  over  from  the  right  reserve  to  strength- 
en Evans  at  the  Bridge.  As  the  great  Federal 
tm-ning  movement  developed  ag-  ^  Con- 

federate left  these  brigades  followeu  ' 

wer-^  ;i..x, .selves  followed  by  o*^^-^  '^ 
real  raged,  not  along  Bui 

Matthews  Hill  and  Henry  Hill. 

Forming  the  new  front  at  right  ^' .  '  lie  old, 

so  as  tJmc^^.mmme  to^i.^f^^^h  on 
the«»!(<H!?w^9ift  •»t«U«)''I!'iBy?'c1{'.?s"ed  itflfcli  cou- 
fusion  f^''  iwvFlj  sides;  but  more  on  the  Federal, 
as  the  iates  knew  the  ground  better.     By 

eleven  Bee  had  reached  Evans  and  sent  word  1 
to  hurry  Bartow  on.    But  the  I 
double  numbers  and  a  great  pr* 
soon  drove  the  Confedr-  ' 
As  the  Confederates  re^.  „ 
climbed  the  Henry  Hill  tli 
Federals  limbered  up  sma? 

Matthews  Hill,  and  fr  <  lied  thr 

retreating  r^         '  ^.  iilope  ^ 

ad-  •   •'^'-  c-i  ^i.>  --  ^■'-' 

r  rn    in 

i  guns  i 


THE  CLASH:  1861  49 

"Curse  them  for  deserting  the  guns,'*  snapped 
Imboden,  whose  battery  came  face  to  face  with 
Jackson's  brigade.  *'I'll  support  you, "  said  Jack- 
son, "unlimber  right  here."  At  the  same  time, 
half-past  eleven.  Bee  galloped  up  on  his  foaming 
charger,  saying,  "General,  they're  beating  us 
back."  "Then,  Sir, "  said  Jackson,"  we'll  give  them 
the  bayonet";  and  his  lips  shut  tight  as  a  vice. 

Bee  then  went  back  behind  the  Henry  Hill, 
where  his  broken  brigade  was  trying  to  rally,  and, 
pointing  toward  the  crest  with  his  sword,  shouted 
in  a  voice  of  thunder:  "Rally  behind  the  Virgin- 
ians !  Look !  There's  Jackson  standing  like  a  stone 
wall!"  From  that  one  cry  of  battle  Stonewall 
Jackson  got  his  name. 

While  the  rest  of  the  Shenandoahs  were  rallying, 
in  rear  of  Jackson,  Beauregard  and  Johnston  came 
up,  followed  by  two  batteries.  Miles  behind  them, 
all  the  men  that  could  be  spared  from  the  fords 
were  coming  too.  But  the  Federals  on  the  Mat- 
thews Hill  were  still  in  more  than  double  numbers; 
and  they  enjoyed  the  priceless  advantage  of  having 
some  regulars  among  them.  If  the  Federal  division 
at  the  Stone  Bridge  had  only  pushed  home  its 
attack  at  this  favorable  moment  the  Confederates 
must  have  been  defeated.    But  the  division  again 


.52  CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

Moreover,  they  would  have  inflicted  not  simply  a 
defeat  but  a  severe  disaster  on  their  enemy,  who 
would  have  been  caught  in  flank  by  the  troops  at 
the  Stone  Bridge;  for  these  troops,  however  dila- 
tory, must  have  known  what  to  do  with  a  broken 
and  flying  Confederate  flank  right  under  their  very 
eyes.  Premonitory  symptoms  of  such  a  flight  were 
not  wanting.  Confederate  wounded,  stragglers, 
and  skulkers  were  making  for  the  rear;  and  the 
rallied  brigades  were  again  in  disorder,  with  Bee 
and  Bartow,  two  first-rate  brigadiers,  just  killed, 
and  other  seniors  wounded.  Another  ominous 
sign  was  the  limbering  up  of  Confederate  guns  to 
cover  the  expected  retreat  from  the  Henry  Hill. 

But  on  its  reverse  slope  lay  Jackson's  Shenan- 
doahs,  three  thousand  strong,  and  by  far  the  best 
drilled  and  disciplined  brigade  that  either  side  had 
yet  produced  —  apart,  of  course,  from  regulars. 
Jackson  had  ridden  up  and  down  before  them,  calm 
as  they  had  ever  seen  him  on  parade,  quietly  say- 
ing, "Steady,  men,  steady!  All's  well."  In  this 
way  he  had  held  them  straining  at  the  leash  for 
hours.  Now,  at  last,  theii'  time  had  come.  Riding 
out  to  the  center  of  his  line  he  gave  his  final  orders. 
"  Reserve  your  fire  till  they  come  within  fifty  yards. 
Then  fire  and  give  them  the  bayonet;  and  yell  like 


THE  CLASH:  1861  53 

furies  when  you  charge!"  Five  minutes  later,  as 
the  triumphant  Federals  topped  the  crest,  the  long 
gray  line  rose  up,  stood  fast,  fired  one  crashing 
point-blank  volley,  and  immediately  charged  home 
with  the  first  of  those  wild,  high  rebel  yells  that 
rang  throughout  the  war.  The  stricken  and  as- 
tounded Federal  front  caved  in,  turned  round,  and 
fled.  At  the  same  instant  the  last  of  the  Shenan- 
doahs  —  Kirby  Smith's  brigade,  detrained  just  in 
the  nick  of  time  —  charged  the  wavering  fiank. 
Then,  like  the  first  quiver  of  an  avalanche,  a  tremor 
shook  the  whole  massed  Federals  one  moment  on 
that  fatal  hill :  the  next,  like  a  loosened  cliff,  they 
began  the  landslide  down. 

There,  in  the  valley,  along  Young's  Branch, 
McDowell  established  his  last  line  of  battle,  based 
on  the  firm  rock  of  the  regulars.  But  by  this  time 
the  Confederates  had  brought  up  troops  from  the 
whole  length  of  their  line ;  the  balance  of  numbers 
was  at  last  in  their  favor;  and  nothing  could  stay 
the  Federal  recoil.  Lack  of  drill  and  discipline 
soon  changed  this  recoil  into  a  disorderly  retreat. 
There  was  no  panic;  but  most  of  the  military  units 
dissolved  into  a  mere  mob  whose  heart  was  set 
on  getting  back  to  Washington  in  any  way  left 
open.     The  regulars  and  a  few  formed  bodies  in 


54  CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

reserve  did  their  best  to  stem  the  stream.     But 
all  in  vain. 

One  mile  short  of  Centreville  there  was  a  sud- 
den upset  and  consequent  block  on  the  bridge 
across  Cub  Run.  Then  the  stream  of  men  retreat- 
ing, mixed  with  clogging  masses  of  panic-struck 
civilians,  became  a  torrent. 

Bull  Run  was  only  a  special-constable  affair  on 
a  gigantic  scale.  The  losses  were  comparatively 
small  —  3553  killed  and  wounded  on  both  sides 
put  together :  not  ten  per  cent  of  the  less  than  forty 
thousand  who  actually  fought.  Moreover,  the  side 
that  won  the  battle  lost  the  war.  And  yet  Bull 
Run  had  many  points  of  very  great  importance. 
In  spite  of  all  shortcomings  it  showed  the  good 
quality  of  the  troops  engaged:  if  not  as  soldiers,  at 
all  events  as  men.  It  proved  that  the  war,  unlike 
the  battle,  would  not  be  fought  by  special  con- 
stables, some  of  whom  first  fired  their  rifles  when 
their  target  was  firing  back  at  them.  It  brought 
one  great  leader  —  Stonewall  Jackson  —  into  fame. 
Above  all,  it  profoundly  affected  the  popular  points 
of  view,  both  North  and  South.  In  the  South  there 
was  undue  elation,  followed  by  the  absurd  belief 
that  one  Southerner  could  beat  two  Northerners 


THE  CLASH:  1861  55 

any  day  and  that  the  North  would  now  back  down 
en  masse,  as  its  army  had  from  the  Henry  Hill.  A 
dangerous  slackening  of  military  preparation  was 
the  unavoidable  result.  In  the  North,  on  the  other 
hand,  a  good  many  people  began  to  see  the  differ- 
ence between  armed  mobs  and  armies;  and  the 
thorough  Unionists,  led  by  the  wise  and  steadfast 
Lincoln,  braced  themselves  for  real  war. 


CHAPTER  II 


THE    COMBATANTS 


No  map  can  show  the  exact  dividing  line  between 
the  actual  combatants  of  North  and  South. 
Eleven  States  seceded:  Virginia,  the  CaroHnas, 
Georgia,  Florida,  Alabama,  Mississippi,  Tennessee, 
Louisiana,  Texas,  and  Arkansas.  But  the  moun- 
tain folk  of  western  Virginia  and  eastern  Tennessee 
were  strong  Unionists;  and  West  Virginia  became 
a  State  while  the  war  was  being  fought.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  four  border  States,  though  officially 
Federal  under  stress  of  circumstances,  were  divided 
against  themselves.  In  Maryland,  Kentucky, 
Missouri,  and  Kansas,  many  citizens  took  the 
Southern  side.  Maryland  would  have  gone  with 
the  South  if  it  had  not  been  for  the  presence  of 
overwhelming  Northern  sea-power  and  the  absence 
of  any  good  land  frontier  of  her  own.  Kentucky 
remained  neutral  for  several  months.  Missouri 
was  saved  for  the  Union  by  those  two  resourceful 

66 


THE  COMBATANTS  57 

and  determined  men,  Lyon  and  Blair.  Kansas, 
though  preponderantly  Unionist,  had  many  Con- 
federates along  its  southern  boundary.  On  the 
whole  the  Union  gained  greatly  throughout  the 
borderlands  as  the  war  went  on;  and  the  remaining 
Confederate  hold  on  the  border  people  was  more 
than  counterbalanced  by  the  Federal  hold  on  those 
in  the  western  parts  of  old  Virginia  and  the  eastern 
parts  of  Tennessee.  Among  the  small  seafaring 
population  along  the  Southern  coast  there  were  also 
some  strongly  Union  men. 

Counting  out  Northern  Confederates  and  South- 
ern Federals  as  canceling  each  other,  so  far  as 
effective  fighting  was  concerned  a  comparison 
made  between  the  North  and  South  along  the  line 
of  actual  secession  reveals  the  one  real  advantage 
the  South  enjoyed  all  through  —  an  overwhelming 
party  in  favor  of  the  war.  When  once  the  die  was 
cast  there  was  certainly  not  a  tenth  of  the  Southern 
whites  who  did  not  belong  to  the  war  party;  and 
the  peace  party  always  had  to  hold  its  tongue.  The 
Southerners  formed  simpler  and  far  more  homo- 
geneous communities  of  the  old  long-settled  stock, 
and  were  more  inclined  to  act  together  when  once 
their  feelings  were  profoundly  stirred. 

The  Northern  communities,  on  the  other  hand^ 


58  CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

being  far  more  complex  and  far  less  homogeneous, 
were  plagued  with  peace  parties  that  grew  like 
human  weeds,  clogging  the  springs  of  action  every- 
where. There  were  immigrants  new  to  the  country 
and  therefore  not  inclined  to  take  risks  for  a  cause 
they  had  not  learned  to  make  their  own.  There 
were  also  naturalized,  and  even  American-born, 
aliens,  aliens  in  speech,  race,  thought,  and  every 
way  of  life.  Then  there  were  the  oppositionists  of 
different  kinds,  who  would  not  support  any  war 
government,  however  like  a  perfect  coalition  it 
might  be.  Among  these  were  some  Northerners 
who  did  business  with  the  South,  especially  the 
men  who  financed  the  cotton  and  tobacco  crops. 
Others,  again,  were  those  loose-tongued  folk  who 
think  anj^  vexed  question  can  be  settled  by  un- 
limited taBi.  Next  came  those  "defeatist"  cranks 
who  always  think  their  o\^^l  side  must  be  WTong, 
and  who  are  of  no  more  practical  use  than  the  out- 
and-out  "pacifists"  who  think  everybody  \sTong 
except  themselves.  Finally,  there  were  those  slip- 
pery folk  who  try  to  evade  all  public  duty,  es- 
pecially when  it  smacks  of  danger.  These  skulkers 
flourish  best  in  large  and  complex  populations, 
where  they  may  even  masquerade  as  patriots  of  the 
kind  so  well  described  by  Lincoln  when  he  said  how 


THE  COMBATANTS  59 

often  he  had  noticed  that  the  men  who  were  loudest 
in  proclaiming  their  readiness  to  shed  their  last 
drop  of  blood  were  generally  the  most  careful  not 
to  shed  the  first. 

Many  of  these  fustian  heroes  formed  the  mush- 
room secret  societies  that  played  their  vile  extrava- 
ganza right  under  the  shadow  of  the  real  tragedy 
of  war.  Worse  still,  not  content  with  the  abraca- 
dabra of  their  silly  oaths,  the  busybody  members 
made  all  the  mischief  they  could  during  Lincoln's 
last  election.  Worst  of  all,  they  not  only  tried  their 
hands  at  political  assassination  in  the  North  but 
they  lured  many  a  gallant  Confederate  to  his  death 
by  promising  to  rise  in  their  might  for  a  "Free 
Northwest"  the  moment  the  Southern  troopers 
should  appear.  Needless  to  say,  not  a  single  one 
of  the  whole  bombastic  band  of  cowards  stirred  a 
finger  to  help  the  Confederate  troopers  who  rode 
to  their  doom  on  Morgan's  Raid  through  Indi- 
ana and  Ohio.  The  peace  party  wore  a  copper 
as  a  badge,  and  so  came  to  be  known  as  "Copper- 
heads," much  to  the  disgust  of  its  more  inflated 
members,  who  called  themselves  the  Sons  of  Lib- 
erty. The  war  party,  with  a  better  appreciation 
of  how  names  and  things  should  be  connected, 
used  their  own  descriptive  "Copperhead"  in  its 


58  CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

being  far  more  complex  and  far  less  homogeneous, 
were  plagued  with  peace  parties  that  grew  like 
human  weeds,  clogging  the  springs  of  action  every- 
where. There  were  immigrants  new  to  the  country 
and  therefore  not  inclined  to  take  risks  for  a  cause 
they  had  not  learned  to  make  their  own.  There 
were  also  naturalized,  and  even  American-born, 
aliens,  aliens  in  speech,  race,  thought,  and  every 
way  of  life.  Then  there  were  the  oppositionists  of 
different  kinds,  who  would  not  support  any  war 
government,  however  like  a  perfect  coalition  it 
might  be.  Among  these  were  some  Northerners 
who  did  business  with  the  South,  especially  the 
men  who  financed  the  cotton  and  tobacco  crops. 
Others,  again,  were  those  loose-tongued  folk  who 
think  any  vexed  question  can  be  settled  by  un- 
limited talk.  Next  came  those  "defeatist"  cranks 
who  always  think  their  own  side  must  be  wrong, 
and  who  are  of  no  more  practical  use  than  the  out- 
and-out  "pacifists"  who  think  everybody  wrong 
except  themselves.  Finally,  there  were  those  slip- 
pery folk  who  try  to  evade  all  public  duty,  es- 
pecially when  it  smacks  of  danger.  These  skulkers 
flourish  best  in  large  and  complex  populations, 
where  they  may  even  masquerade  as  patriots  of  the 
kind  so  well  described  by  Lincoln  when  he  said  how 


THE  COMBATANTS  59 

often  he  had  noticed  that  the  men  who  were  loudest 
m  proclaiming  their  readiness  to  shed  their  last 
drop  of  blood  were  generally  the  most  careful  not 
to  shed  the  first. 

Many  of  these  fustian  heroes  formed  the  mush- 
room secret  societies  that  played  their  vile  extrava- 
ganza right  under  the  shadow  of  the  real  tragedy 
of  war.  Worse  still,  not  content  with  the  abraca- 
dabra of  their  silly  oaths,  the  busybody  members 
made  all  the  mischief  they  could  during  Lincoln's 
last  election.  Worst  of  all,  they  not  only  tried  their 
hands  at  political  assassination  in  the  North  but 
they  lured  many  a  gallant  Confederate  to  his  death 
by  promising  to  rise  in  their  might  for  a  "Free 
Northwest"  the  moment  the  Southern  troopers 
should  appear.  Needless  to  say,  not  a  single  one 
of  the  whole  bombastic  band  of  cowards  stirred  a 
finger  to  help  the  Confederate  troopers  who  rode 
to  their  doom  on  Morgan's  Raid  through  Indi- 
ana and  Ohio.  The  peace  party  wore  a  copper 
as  a  badge,  and  so  came  to  be  known  as  "Copper- 
heads," much  to  the  disgust  of  its  more  inflated 
members,  who  called  themselves  the  Sons  of  Lib- 
erty. The  war  party,  with  a  better  appreciation 
of  how  names  and  things  should  be  connected, 
used  their  own  descriptive  "Copperhead"  in  its 


60  CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

appropriate  meaning  of  a  poisonous  snake  in  the 
grass  behind. 

The  Indians  would  have  preferred  neutraHty 
between  the  two  kinds  of  inevitably  dispossessing 
whites.  But  neutrality  was  impossible  in  what 
was  then  the  Far  West.  Not  ten  thousand  Indians 
fought  for  both  sides  put  together.  On  the  whole 
they  fought  well  as  skirmishers,  though  they  rarely 
withstood  shell  fire,  even  when  their  cover  was 
good  and  their  casualties  small. 

The  ten  times  more  numerous  negroes  were  nat- 
urally a  much  more  serious  factor.  The  North  en- 
couraged the  employment  of  colored  labor  corps 
and  even  colored  soldiers,  especially  after  Emanci- 
pation. But  the  vast  majority  of  negroes,  whether 
slave  or  free,  either  preferred  or  put  up  with  their 
Southern  masters,  whom  they  generally  served 
faithfully  enough  either  in  military  labor  corps  or 
on  the  old  plantations.  As  the  colored  population 
of  the  South  was  three  and  a  half  millions  this  gen- 
eral fidelity  was  of  great  importance  to  the  forces 
in  the  field. 

The  total  population  of  the  United  States  in 
1861  was  about  thirty-one  and  a  half  millions.  Of 
this  total  twenty-two  and  a  half  belonged  to  the 
North  and  nine  to  the  South.    The  gi'and  total 


THE  COMBATANTS  61 

odds  were  therefore  five  against  two.  The  odds 
against  the  South  rise  to  four  against  one  if  the 
blacks  are  left  out.  There  were  twenty-two  million 
whites  in  the  North  against  five  and  a  half  in  the 
South.  But  to  reach  the  real  fighting  odds  of  three 
to  one  we  must  also  eliminate  the  peace  parties, 
large  in  the  North,  small  in  the  South.  If  we  take 
a  tenth  off  the  Southern  whites  and  a  third  off  the 
Northern  grand  total  we  shall  get  the  approximate 
war-party  odds  of  three  to  one;  for  these  subtrac- 
tions leave  fifteen  millions  in  the  North  against 
only  five  in  the  South. 

This  gives  the  statistical  key  to  the  startling 
contrasts  which  were  so  often  noted  by  foreign 
correspondents  at  the  time,  and  which  are  still  so 
puzzling  in  the  absence  of  the  key.  The  whole 
normal  life  of  the  South  was  visibly  changed  by  the 
war.  But  in  the  North  the  inquiring  foreigner 
could  find,  on  one  hand,  the  most  steadfast  loyalty 
and  heroic  sacrifice,  both  in  the  Northern  armies 
and  among  their  folks  at  home,  while  on  the  other 
he  could  find  a  wholly  different  kind  of  life  flaunt- 
ing its  most  shameless  features  in  his  face.  The 
theaters  were  crowded.  Profiteers  abounded,  tak- 
ing their  pleasures  with  ravenous  greed;  for  the 
best  of  their  blood-money  would  end  with  the  war. 


62  CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

Everywhere  there  was  the  same  fundamental  differ- 
ence between  the  patriots  who  carried  on  the  war 
and  the  parasites  who  hindered  them.  Of  com-se 
the  two-thirds  who  made  up  the  war  party  were 
not  all  saints  or  even  perfect  patriots.  Nor  was 
the  other  third  composed  exclusively  of  wanton 
sinners.  There  were,  for  instance,  the  genuine 
settlers  whom  the  Union  Government  encouraged 
to  occupy  the  West,  beyond  the  actual  reach  of 
war.    But  the  distinction  still  remains. 

Though  sorely  hampered,  the  Union  Govern- 
ment did,  on  the  whole,  succeed  in  turning  the  vast 
and  varied  resources  of  the  North  against  the  much 
smaller  and  less  varied  resources  of  the  South. 
The  North  held  the  machinery  of  national  govern- 
ment, though  with  the  loss  of  a  good  quarter  of  the 
engineers.  In  agriculture  of  all  kinds  both  North 
and  South  were  very  strong  for  purposes  of  peace. 
Each  had  food  in  superabundance.  But  the  trad- 
ing strength  of  the  South  lay  in  cotton  and  tobacco, 
neither  of  which  could  be  turned  into  money  with- 
out going  north  or  to  sea.  In  finance  the  North 
was  overwhelmingly  strong  by  comparison,  more 
especially  because  Northern  sea-power  shut  off 
the  South  from  all  its  foreign  markets.  In  man- 
ufactures the  South  could  not  compare  at  all. 


THE  COMBATANTS  63 

Northern  factories  alone  could  not  supply  the 
armies.  But  finance  and  factories  together  could. 
The  Southern  soldier  looked  to  the  battlefield  and 
the  raiding  of  a  base  for  supplying  many  of  his 
most  pressing  needs  in  arms,  equipment,  clothing, 
and  even  food  —  for  Southern  transport  suffered 
from  many  disabilities.  Fierce  wolfish  cries  would 
mingle  with  the  rebel  yell  in  battle  when  the  two 
sides  closed.  "You've  got  to  leave  your  rations!" 
—  "Come  out  of  them  clothes !"  —  " Take  off 
them  boots,  Yank!"  —  "Come  on,  blue  bellies,  we 
want  them  blankets!" 

It  was  the  same  in  almost  every  kind  of  goods. 
The  South  made  next  to  none  for  herself  and  had 
to  import  from  the  North  or  overseas.  The  North 
could  buy  silk  for  balloons.  The  South  could  not. 
The  Southern  women  gave  in  their  whole  supply  of 
silk  for  the  big  balloon  that  was  lost  during  the 
Seven  Days'  Battle  in  the  second  year  of  the  war. 
The  Southern  soldiers  never  forgave  what  they 
considered  the  ungallant  trick  of  the  Northerners 
who  took  this  many-hued  balloon  from  a  steamer 
stranded  on  a  bar  at  low  tide  down  near  the  mouth 
of  the  James.  Thus  fell  the  last  silk  dress,  a  queer 
tribute  to  Northern  sea-power!  Northern  sea- 
power  also  cut  off  nearly  everything  the  sick  and 


64  CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

wounded  needed;  which  raised  the  death  rate  of 
the  Southern  forces  far  beyond  the  corresponding 
death  rate  in  the  North.  Again,  preserved  rations 
were  almost  unknown  in  the  South.  But  they  were 
plentiful  throughout  the  Northern  armies:  far 
too  plentiful,  indeed,  for  the  taste  of  the  men, 
who  got  "fed  up"  on  the  dessicated  vegetables 
and  concentrated  milk  which  they  rechristened 
"desecrated  vegetables"  and  "consecrated  milk." 

There  is  the  same  tale  to  tell  about  transport  and 
munitions.  Outside  the  Tredegar  Iron  Works  at 
Richmond  the  only  places  where  Southern  cannon 
could  be  made  were  Charlotte  in  North  Carolina, 
Atlanta  and  Macon  in  Georgia,  and  Selma  in  Ala- 
bama. The  North  had  many  places,  each  with 
superior  plant,  besides  which  the  oversea  munition 
world  was  far  more  at  the  service  of  the  open- 
ported  North  than  of  the  close-blockaded  South. 
What  sea-power  meant  in  this  respect  may  be  esti- 
mated from  the  fact  that  out  of  the  more  than 
three-quarters  of  a  million  rifles  bought  by  the 
North  in  the  first  fourteen  months  of  the  war  all 
but  a  beggarly  thirty  thousand  came  from  overseas. 

Transport  was  done  by  road,  rail,  sea,  and  in- 
land waters.  Other  things  being  equal,  a  hundred 
tons  could  be  moved  by  water  as  easily  as  ten  by 


THE  COMBATANTS  65 

rail  or  one  by  road.  Now,  the  North  not  only  en- 
joyed enormous  advantages  in  sea-power,  both 
mercantile  and  naval,  but  in  road,  rail,  canal,  and 
river  transport  too.  The  road  transport  that 
affected  both  sides  most  was  chiefly  in  the  South, 
because  most  maneuvering  took  place  there. 
"Have  you  been  through  Virginia.'*  —  Yes,  in  sev- 
eral places"  is  a  witticism  that  might  be  applied 
to  many  another  State  where  muddy  sloughs 
abounded.  In  horses,  mules,  and  vehicles  the 
richer  North  wore  out  the  poorer  and  blockaded 
South.  Both  sides  sent  troops,  munitions,  and  sup- 
plies by  rail  whenever  they  could;  and  here,  as  a 
glance  at  the  map  will  show,  the  North  greatly  sur- 
passed the  South  in  mileage,  strategic  disposition, 
and  every  other  way. 

The  South  had  only  one  through  line  from  the 
Atlantic  to  the  Mississippi ;  and  this  ran  across  that 
Northern  salient  which  threatened  the  South  from 
the  southwestern  Alleghanies.  The  other  rails  all 
had  the  strategic  defect  of  not  being  convenient  for 
rapid  concentration  by  land ;  for  most  of  the  South- 
ern rails  were  laid  with  a  view  to  getting  surplus 
cotton  and  tobacco  overseas.  The  strategic  gap 
at  Petersburg  was  due  to  a  very  different  cause; 
for  there,  in  order  to  keep  its  local  transfers,  the 


66  CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

town  refused  to  let  the  most  important  Virginian 
lines  connect. 

Taking  sea-power  in  its  fullest  sense,  to  include 
all  naval  and  mercantile  parts  on  both  salt  and 
fresh  water,  we  can  quite  understand  how  it  helped 
the  nautical  North  to  get  the  strangle-hold  on  the 
landsman's  South.  The  great  bulk  of  the  whole 
external  trade  of  the  South  was  done  by  shipping. 
But,  though  the  South  was  strong  in  exportable 
goods,  it  was  very  weak  in  ships.  It  owned  com- 
paratively few  of  the  vessels  that  carried  its  rice, 
cotton,  and  tobacco  crops  to  market  and  brought 
back  made  goods  in  return.  Yankees,  Britishers, 
and  Bluenoses  (as  Nova  Scotian  craft  were  called) 
did  most  of  the  oversea  transportation. 

Moreover,  the  North  was  vastly  stronger  than 
the  South  on  all  the  inland  waters  that  were  not 
"Secesh"  from  end  to  end.  The  map  shows  how 
Northern  sea-power  could  not  only  divide  the 
South  in  two  but  almost  enisle  the  eastern  part  as 
well.  Holding  the  Mississippi  would  effect  the 
division,  while  holding  the  Ohio  would  make  the 
eastern  part  a  peninsula,  with  the  upper  end  of  the 
isthmus  safe  in  Northern  hands  between  Pitts- 
burgh, the  great  coal  and  iron  inland  port,  and 
Philadelphia,  the  great  seaport,  less  than  three 


THE  COMBATANTS  67 

hundred  miles  away.  The  same  isthmus  narrows 
to  less  than  two  hundred  miles  between  Pittsburgh 
and  Harrisburg  (on  the  Susquehanna  River) ;  and 
its  whole  line  is  almost  equally  safe  in  Northern 
hands.  A  little  farther  south,  along  the  disputed 
borderlands,  it  narrows  to  less  than  one  hundred 
miles,  from  Pittsburgh  to  Cumberland  (on  the 
Potomac  canal).  Even  this  is  not  the  narrowest 
part  of  the  isthmus,  which  is  less  than  seventy 
miles  across  from  Cumberland  to  Brownsville  (on 
the  Monongahela)  and  less  than  fifty  from  Cumber- 
land to  the  Ohiopyle  Falls  (on  the  Youghiogheny). 
These  last  distances  are  measured  between  places 
that  are  only  fit  for  minor  navigation.  But  even 
small  craft  had  an  enormous  advantage  over  road 
and  rail  together  when  bulky  stores  were  moved. 
So  Northern  sea-power  could  make  its  controlling 
influence  felt  in  one  continuous  line  all  round  the 
eastern  South,  except  for  fifty  miles  where  small 
craft  were  concerned  and  for  two  hundred  miles 
in  the  case  of  larger  vessels.  These  two  hun- 
dred miles  of  land  were  those  between  the  Ohio 
River  port  of  Wheeling  and  the  Navy  Yard  at 
Washington. 

Nor  was  this  virtual  enislement  the  only  ad- 
vantage to  be  won.    For  while  the  strong  right  arm 


68  CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

of  Union  sea-power,  facing  northward  from  the 
Gulf,  could  hold  the  coast,  and  its  sinewy  left  could 
hold  the  Mississippi,  the  supple  left  fingers  could 
feel  their  way  along  the  tributary  streams  until  the 
clutching  hand  had  got  its  grip  on  the  whole  of  the 
Ohio,  Cumberland,  Tennessee,  Missouri,  Arkansas, 
and  Red  rivers.  This  meant  that  the  North  would 
not  only  enjoy  the  vast  advantages  of  transport  by 
water  over  transport  by  land  but  that  it  would 
cause  the  best  lines  of  invasion  to  be  opened  up 
as  well. 

Of  course  the  South  had  some  sea-power  of  her 
own.  Nine-tenths  of  the  United  States  Navy  stood 
by  the  Union.  But,  with  the  remaining  tenth  and 
some  foreign  help,  the  South  managed  to  contrive 
the  makeshift  parts  of  what  might  have  become  a 
navy  if  the  North  had  only  let  it  grow.  The  North, 
however,  did  not  let  it  grow. 

The  regular  navy  of  the  United  States,  though 
very  small  to  start  with,  was  always  strong  enough 
to  keep  the  command  of  the  sea  and  to  prevent  the 
makeshift  Southern  parts  of  a  navy  from  ever  be- 
coming a  whole.  Privateers  took  out  letters  of 
marque  to  prey  on  Northern  shipping.  But  priva- 
teering soon  withered  off,  because  prizes  could  not 
be  run  through  the  blockade  in  sufficient  numbers 


THE  COMBATANTS  69 

to  make  it  pay;  and  no  prize  would  be  recog- 
nized except  in  a  Southern  port.  Raiders  did 
better  and  for  a  much  longer  time.  The  Shenan- 
doah was  burning  Northern  whalers  in  Bering  Sea 
at  the  end  of  the  war.  The  Sumter  and  the  Florida 
cut  a  wide  swath  under  instructions  which  "left 
much  to  discretion  and  more  to  the  torch,"  The 
famous  Alabama  only  succumbed  to  the  U.  S.  S. 
Kearsarge  after  sinking  the  Hatteras  man-of-war 
and  raiding  seventy  other  vessels.  Yet  still  the 
South,  in  spite  of  her  ironclads,  raiders,  and  rams, 
in  spite  of  her  river  craft,  of  the  home  ships  or  for- 
eigners that  ran  the  blockade,  and  of  all  her  other 
efforts,  was  a  landsman's  country  that  could  make 
no  real  headway  against  the  native  sea-power  of 
the  North. 

Perhaps  the  worst  of  all  the  disabilities  under 
which  the  abortive  Southern  navy  suffered  was 
lubberly  administration  and  gross  civilian  inter- 
ference. The  Administration  actually  refused  to 
buy  the  beginnings  of  a  ready-made  sea-going  fleet 
when  it  had  the  offer  of  ten  British  East  Indiamen 
specially  built  for  rapid  conversion  into  men-of- 
war.  Forty  thousand  bales  of  cotton  would  have 
bought  the  lot.  The  Mississippi  record  was  even 
worse.     Five  conflicting  authorities  divided  the 


70  CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

undefined  and  overlapping  responsibilities  between 
them:  the  Confederate  Government,  the  State 
governments,  the  army,  the  navy,  and  the  Missis- 
sippi skippers.  A  typical  result  may  be  seen  in  the 
fate  of  the  fourteen  "rams"  which  were  absurdly 
mishandled  by  fourteen  independent  civilian 
skippers  with  two  civilian  commodores.  This 
"River  Defense  Fleet"  was  "backed  by  the  whole 
Missouri  delegation"  at  Richmond,  and  blessed  by 
the  Confederate  Secretary  of  War,  Judah  P.  Ben- 
jamin, that  very  clever  lawyer-politician  and  ever- 
smiling  Jew.  Six  of  the  fourteen  "rams  "  were  lost, 
with  sheer  futility,  at  New  Orleans  in  April,  '62; 
the  rest  at  Memphis  the  following  June. 

As  a  matter  of  fact  the  Confederate  navy  never 
had  but  one  real  man-of-war,  the  famous  Merri- 
mac;  and  she  was  a  mere  razee,  cut  down  for  a 
special  purpose,  and  too  feebly  engined  to  keep  the 
sea.  Even  the  equally  famous  Alabama  was  only  a 
raider,  never  meant  for  action  with  a  fleet.  Over 
three  hundred  officers  left  the  United  States  Navy 
for  the  South;  but,  as  in  the  case  of  the  Army,  they 
were  followed  by  very  few  men.  The  total  per- 
sonnel of  the  regular  Confederate  navy  never  ex- 
ceeded four  thousand  at  any  one  time.  The  irregu- 
lar forces  afloat  often  did  gallant,  and  sometimes 


THE  COMBATANTS  71 

even  skillful,  service  in  little  isolated  ways.  But 
when  massed  together  they  were  always  at  sixes 
and  sevens;  and  they  could  never  do  more  than 
make  the  best  of  a  very  bad  business  indeed.  The 
Secretary  of  the  Confederate  navy,  Stephen  R. 
Mallory,  was  not  to  blame.  He  was  one  of  the  very 
few  civilians  who  understood  and  tried  to  follow 
any  naval  principles  at  all.  He  had  done  good 
work  as  chairman  of  the  Naval  Committee  in  the 
Senate  before  the  war,  and  had  learnt  a  good  deal 
more  than  his  Northern  rival,  Gideon  Welles.  He 
often  saw  what  should  have  been  done.  But  men 
and  means  were  lacking. 

Men  and  means  were  also  lacking  in  the  naval 
North  at  the  time  the  war  began.  But  the  small 
regular  navy  was  invincible  against  next  to  none; 
and  it  enjoyed  many  means  of  expansion  denied  to 
the  South. 

On  the  outbreak  of  hostilities  the  United  States 
Navy  had  ninety  ships  and  about  nine  thousand 
men  —  all  ranks  and  ratings  (with  marines)  in- 
cluded. The  age  of  steam  had  come.  But  fifty 
vessels  had  no  steam  at  all.  Of  the  rest  one  was 
on  the  Lakes,  five  were  quite  unserviceable,  and 
thirty-four  were  scattered  about  the  world  without 
the  slightest  thought  of  how  to  mobilize  a  fleet  at 


72         CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

home.  The  age  of  ironclads  had  begun  aheady 
overseas.  But  in  his  report  to  Congress  on  July 
4,  1861,  Gideon  Welles,  Secretary  of  the  Navy, 
only  made  some  wholly  non-committal  observa- 
tions in  ponderous  "officialese."  In  August  he  ap- 
pointed a  committee  which  began  its  report  in 
September  with  the  sage  remark  that  "Opinions 
differ  amongst  naval  and  scientific  men  as  to  the 
policy  of  adopting  the  iron  armament  for  ships-of- 
war."  In  December  Welles  transmitted  this  re- 
port to  Congress  with  the  still  sager  remark  that 
"The  subject  of  iron  armature  for  ships  is  one 
of  great  general  interest,  not  only  to  the  navy 
and  country,  but  is  engaging  the  attention  of  the 
civilized  world."  Such  was  the  higher  adminis- 
trative preparation  for  the  ironclad  battle  of  the 
following  year. 

It  was  the  same  in  everything.  The  people  had 
taken  no  interest  in  the  navy  and  Congress  had 
faithfully  represented  them  by  denying  the  service 
all  chance  of  preparing  for  war  till  after  war  had 
broken  out.  Then  there  was  the  usual  hurry  and 
horrible  waste.  Fortunately  for  all  concerned, 
Gideon  Welles,  after  vainly  groping  about  the  ad- 
ministrative maze  for  the  first  five  months,  called 
Gustavus  V.  Fox  to  his  assistance.    Fox  had  been 


THE  COMBATANTS  73 

a  naval  oflScer  of  exceptional  promise,  who  had  left 
the  service  to  go  into  business,  who  had  a  natural 
turn  for  administration,  and  who  now  made  an 
almost  ideal  Assistant  Secretary  of  the  Navy.  He 
was,  indeed,  far  more  than  this ;  for,  in  most  essen- 
tials, he  acted  throughout  the  war  as  a  regular 
Chief  of  Staff. 

One  of  the  greatest  troubles  was  the  glut  of  senior 
officers  who  were  too  old  and  the  alarming  dearth 
of  juniors  fit  for  immediate  work  afloat.  It  was 
only  after  the  disaster  at  Bull  Run  that  Congress 
authorized  the  formation  of  a  Promotion  Board  to 
see  what  could  be  done  to  clear  the  active  list  and 
make  it  really  a  list  of  officers  fit  for  active  service. 
Up  to  this  time  there  had  been  no  system  of  retii'- 
ing  men  for  inefficiency  or  age.  An  officer  who  did 
not  retire  of  his  own  accord  simply  went  on  rising 
automatically  till  he  died.  The  president  of  this 
board  had  himself  turned  sixty.  But  he  was  the 
thoroughly  efficient  David  Glasgow  Farragut,  a 
man  who  was  to  do  greater  things  afloat  than  even 
Fox  could  do  ashore.  How  badly  active  officers 
were  wanted  may  be  inferred  from  the  fact  that 
before  the  appointment  of  Farragut's  promotion 
board  the  total  number  of  regular  officers  remain- 
ing in  the  navy  was  only  1457.    Intensive  training 


74  CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

was  tried  at  the  Naval  Academy,  Yet  7500  volun- 
teer officers  had  to  be  used  before  the  war  was  over. 
These  came  mostly  from  the  merchant  service  and 
were  generally  brave,  capable,  first-rate  men.  But 
a  nautical  is  not  the  same  as  a  naval  training ;  and 
the  dearth  of  good  professional  naval  officers  was 
felt  to  the  end.  The  number  of  enlisted  seamen 
authorized  by  Congress  rose  from  7600  to  51,500. 
But  the  very  greatest  difficulty  was  found  in  "keep- 
ing up  to  strength,"  even  with  the  most  lavish  use 
of  bounties. 

The  number  of  vessels  in  the  navy  kept  on  grow- 
ing all  through.  Of  course  not  nearly  all  of  them 
were  regular  men-of-war  or  even  fighting  craft  "fit 
to  go  foreign."  At  the  end  of  the  first  year  there 
were  264  in  commission;  at  the  end  of  the  second, 
427;  at  the  end  of  the  third,  588;  and  at  the  end  of 
the  fourth,  671. 

Bearing  this  in  mind,  and  remembering  the  many 
other  Northern  odds,  one  might  easily  imagine  that 
the  Southern  armies  fought  only  with  the  courage 
of  despair.  Yet  such  was  not  the  case.  This  was 
no  ordinary  war,  to  be  ended  by  a  treaty  in  which 
compromise  would  play  its  part.  There  could  be 
only  two  alternatives :  either  the  South  would  win 
her  independence  or  the  North  would  have  to  beat 


THE  COMBATANTS  75 

her  into  complete  submission.  Under  the  circum- 
stances the  united  South  would  win  whenever  the 
divided  North  thought  that  complete  subjugation 
would  cost  more  than  it  was  worth.  The  great 
aim  of  the  South  was,  therefore,  not  to  conquer  the 
North  but  simply  to  sicken  the  North  of  trying  to 
conquer  her.  "Let  us  alone  and  we'll  let  you 
alone"  was  her  insinuating  argument;  and  this,  as 
she  knew  very  well,  was  echoed  by  many  people  in 
the  North.  Thus,  as  regards  her  own  objective, 
she  began  with  hopes  that  the  Northern  peace 
party  never  quite  let  die. 

Then,  so  far  as  her  patriotic  feelings  were  con- 
cerned, the  South  was  not  fighting  for  any  one 
point  at  issue  —  not  even  for  slavery,  because  only 
a  small  minority  held  slaves  —  but  for  her  whole 
way  of  life,  which,  rightly  or  wrongly,  she  wanted 
to  live  in  her  own  Southern  way;  and  she  passion- 
ately resented  the  invasion  of  her  soil.  This  gave 
her  army  a  very  high  morale,  which,  in  its  turn, 
inclined  her  soldiers  the  better  to  appreciate  their 
real  or  imagined  advantages  over  the  Northern 
hosts.  First,  they  and  their  enemies  both  knew 
that  they  enjoyed  the  three  real  advantages  of 
fighting  at  home  under  magnificent  leaders  and 
with  interior  lines.     Robert  Lee  and  Stonewall 


76  CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

Jackson  stood  head  and  shoulders  above  any  North- 
ern leaders  till  Grant  and  Sherman  rose  to  great- 
ness during  the  latter  half  of  the  war.  Lee  himself 
was  never  surpassed;  and  he,  like  Jackson  and 
several  more,  made  the  best  use  of  home  surround- 
ings and  of  interior  lines.  Anybody  can  appreciate 
the  prime  advantage  of  interior  lines  by  imagining 
two  armies  of  equal  strength  operating  against  each 
other  under  perfectly  equal  conditions  except  that 
one  has  to  move  round  the  circumference  of  a  circle 
while  the  other  moves  to  meet  it  along  the  shorter 
lines  inside.  The  army  moving  round  the  circum- 
ference is  said  to  be  operating  on  exterior  lines, 
while  the  army  moving  from  point  to  point  of 
the  circumference  by  the  straighter,  and  therefore 
shorter,  lines  inside  is  said  to  be  operating  on  in- 
terior lines.  In  more  homely  language  the  straight 
road  beats  the  crooked  one.  In  plain  slang,  it's 
best  to  have  the  inside  track. 

Of  course  there  is  a  reverse  to  all  this.  If  the 
roads,  rails,  and  waterways  are  better  around  the 
circle  than  inside  it,  then  the  odds  may  be  turned 
the  other  way;  and  this  happens  most  often  when 
the  forces  on  the  exterior  lines  are  the  better  pro- 
vided with  sea-power.  Again,  if  the  exterior  forces 
are  so  much  stronger  than  the  interior  forces  that 


THE  COMBATANTS  77 

these  latter  dare  not  leave  any  strategic  point  open 
in  case  the  enemy  breaks  through,  then  it  is  evident 
that  the  interior  forces  will  suffer  all  the  disad- 
vantages of  being  surrounded,  divided,  worn  out, 
and  defeated. 

This  happened  at  last  to  the  South,  and  was  one 
of  the  four  advantages  she  lost.  Another  was  the 
hope  of  foreign  intervention,  which  died  hard  in 
Southern  hearts,  but  which  was  already  moribund 
halfway  through  the  war.  A  third  was  the  hope  of 
dissension  in  the  North,  a  hope  which  often  ran 
high  till  Lincoln's  reelection  in  November,  '64,  and 
one  which  only  died  out  completely  with  the  sur- 
render of  Lee.  The  fourth  was  the  unfounded  be- 
lief that  Southerners  were  the  better  fighting  men. 
They  certainly  had  an  advantage  at  first  in  having 
a  larger  proportion  of  men  accustomed  to  horses 
and  arms  and  inured  to  life  in  the  open.  But,  other 
things  being  equal,  there  was  nothing  to  choose 
between  the  two  sides,  so  far  as  natural  fighting 
values  were  concerned. 

Practically  all  the  Southern  "military  males" 
passed  into  the  ranks;  and  a  military  male  even- 
tually meant  any  one  who  could  march  to  the 
front  or  do  non-combatant  service  with  an  army, 
from  boys  in  their  teens  to  men  in  their  sixties. 


78  CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

Conscription  came  after  one  year;  and  with  very 
few  exemptions,  such  as  the  clergy,  Quakers,  many 
doctors,  newspaper  editors,  and  "indispensable" 
civil  servants.    Lee  used  to  express  his  regret  that 
all  the  greatest  strategists  were  tied  to  their  edi- 
torial chairs.     But  sterner  feelings  were  aroused 
against  that  recalcitrant  State  Governor,  Joseph 
Brown  of  Georgia,  who  declared  eight  thousand  of 
his  civil  servants  to  be  totally  exempt.    From  first 
to  last,  conscripts  and  volunteers,  nearly  a  million 
men  were  enrolled :  equaling  one-fifth  of  the  entire 
war-party  white  population  of  the  seceding  States. 
All  branches  of  the  service  suffered  from  a  con- 
stant lack  of  arms  and  munitions.    As  with  the 
ships  for  the  navy  so  with  munitions  for  the  army, 
the  South  did  not  exploit  the  European  markets 
while  her  ports  were  still  half  open  and  her  credit 
good.    Jefferson  Davis  was  spotlessly  honest,  an 
able  bureaucrat,  and  full  of  undying  zeal.    But, 
though  an  old  West  Pointer,  he  was  neither  a  fore- 
sightful  organizer  nor  fit  to  exercise  any  of  the  ex- 
ecutive power  which  he  held  as  the  constitutional 
commander-in-chief  by  land  and  sea.    He  ordered 
rifles  by  the  thousand  instead  of  by  the  hundred 
thousand;  and  he  actually  told  his  Cabinet  that  if 
he  could  only  take  one  wing  while  Lee  took  the 


THE  COMBATANTS  79 

other  they  would  surely  beat  the  North.  Worse 
still,  he  and  his  politicians  kept  the  commissariat 
under  civilian  orders  and  full  of  civilian  interfer- 
ence, even  at  the  front,  which,  in  this  respect,  was 
always  a  house  divided  against  itself. 

The  little  regular  army  of  *61,  only  sixteen  thou- 
sand strong,  stood  by  the  Union  almost  to  a  man; 
though  a  quarter  of  the  officers  went  over  to  the 
South.  Yet  the  enlisted  man  was  despised  even  by 
the  common  loafers  who  would  not  fight  if  they 
could  help  it.  "Why  don't  you  come  in? "  asked  a 
zealous  lady  at  a  distribution  of  patriotic  gifts, 
"aren't  you  one  of  our  heroes?"  "No,  ma'am," 
answered  the  soldier,  "I'm  only  a  regular." 

The  question  of  command  was  often  a  very  vexed 
one;  and  many  mistakes  were  made  before  the  final 
answers  came.  The  most  significant  of  all  emer- 
gent facts  was  this:  that  though  the  officers  who 
had  been  regulars  before  the  war  did  not  form  a 
hundredth  part  of  all  who  held  commissions  during 
it,  yet  these  old  regulars  alone  supplied  every  suc- 
cessful high  commander,  Federal  and  Confederate 
alike,  both  afloat  and  ashore. 

The  North  had  four  times  as  many  whites  as  the 
South;  it  used  more  blacks  as  soldiers;  and  the 


80  CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

complete  grand  total  of  all  the  men  who  joined  its 
forces  dm'ing  the  war  reached  two  millions  and 
three-quarters.  But  this  gives  a  quite  misleading 
idea  of  the  real  odds  in  favor  of  the  North,  espe- 
cially the  odds  available  in  battle.  A  third  of  the 
Northern  people  belonged  to  the  peace  party  and 
furnished  no  recuits  at  all  till  after  conscription 
came  in.  The  late  introduction  of  conscription, 
the  abominable  substitution  clause,  and  the  prev- 
alence of  bounty- jumping  combined  to  reduce 
both  the  quantity  and  quality  of  the  recruits  ob- 
tained by  money  or  compulsion.  The  Northerners 
that  did  fight  were  generally  fighting  in  the  South, 
among  a  very  hostile  population,  which,  while  it 
made  the  Southern  lines  of  communication  perfectly 
safe,  threatened  those  of  the  North  at  every  point 
and  thus  obliged  the  Northern  armies  to  leave  more 
and  more  men  behind  to  guard  the  communica- 
tions that  each  advance  made  longer  still.  Finally, 
the  South  generally  published  the  numbers  of 
only  its  actual  combatants,  while  the  Northern 
returns  always  included  every  man  drawing  pay, 
whether  a  combatant  or  not.  On  the  whole,  the 
North  had  more  than  double  numbers,  even  if 
compared  with  a  Southern  total  that  includes  non- 
combatants.   But  it  should  be  remembered  that  a 


THE  COMBATANTS  81 

Northern  army  fighting  in  the  heart  of  the  South, 
and  therefore  having  to  guard  every  mile  of  the 
way  back  home,  could  not  meet  a  Southern  one 
with  equal  strength  in  battle  unless  it  had  left  the 
North  with  fully  twice  as  many. 

Conscription  came  a  year  later  (1863)  in  the 
North  than  in  the  South  and  was  vitiated  by  a  sub- 
stitution clause.  The  fact  that  a  man  could  buy 
himself  out  of  danger  made  some  patriots  call  it 
"a  rich  man's  war  and  a  poor  man's  fight."  And 
the  further  fact  that  substitutes  generally  became 
regular  bounty-jumpers,  who  joined  and  deserted 
at  will,  over  and  over  again,  went  far  to  in- 
crease the  disgust  of  those  who  really  served. 
Frank  Wilkeson's  Recollections  of  a  Private  Sol- 
dier in  the  Army  of  the  Potomac  is  a  true  voice 
from  the  ranks  when  he  explains  "how  the  re- 
sort to  volunteering,  the  unprincipled  dodge  of 
cowardly  politicians,  ground  up  the  choicest  seed- 
corn  of  the  nation;  how  it  consumed  the  young, 
the  patriotic,  the  intelligent,  the  generous,  and 
the  brave;  and  how  it  wasted  the  best  mor- 
al, social,  and  political  elements  of  the  Repub- 
lic, leaving  the  cowards,  shirkers,  egotists,  and 
money-makers  to  stay  at  home  and  procreate 
their  kind." 


82  CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

That  is  to  say,  it  was  so  arranged  that  the  foxy- 
witted  lived,  while  the  lion-hearted  died. 

The  organization  of  the  vast  numbers  enrolled 
was  excellent  whenever  experts  were  given  a  free 
hand.  But  this  free  hand  was  rare.  One  vital 
point  only  needs  special  notice  here:  the  wasteful- 
ness of  raising  new  regiments  when  the  old  ones 
were  withering  away  for  want  of  reinforcements.  A 
new  local  regiment  made  a  better  "story"  in  the 
press;  and  new  and  superfluous  regiments  meant 
new  and  superfluous  colonels,  mostly  of  the  speech- 
ifying kind.  So  it  often  happened  that  the  State 
authorities  felt  obliged  to  humor  zealots  set  on 
raising  those  brand-new  regiments  which  doubled 
their  own  diflSculties  by  having  to  learn  their  lesson 
alone,  halved  the  efficiency  of  the  old  regiments 
they  should  have  reinforced,  and  harassed  the 
commanders  and  staff  by  increasing  the  number  of 
units  that  were  of  different  and  ever-changing  effi- 
ciency and  strength.  It  was  a  system  of  making 
and  breaking  all  through. 

The  end  came  when  Northern  sea-power  had 
strangled  the  Southern  resources  and  the  unified 
Northern  armies  had  worn  out  the  fighting  force. 
Of  the  single  million  soldiers  raised  by  the  South 


THE  COMBATANTS  83 

only  two  hundred  thousand  remained  in  arms,  half 
starved,  half  clad,  with  the  scantiest  of  munitions, 
and  without  reserves  of  any  kind.  Meanwhile  the 
Northern  hosts  had  risen  to  a  million  in  the  field, 
well  fed,  well  clothed,  well  armed,  abundantly 
provided  with  munitions,  and  at  last  well  disci- 
plined under  the  unified  command  of  that  great 
leader,  Grant.  Moreover,  behind  this  million  stood 
another  million  fit  to  bear  arms  and  obtainable  at 
will  from  the  two  millions  of  enrolled  reserves. 

The  cost  of  the  war  was  stupendous.  But  the 
losses  of  war  are  not  to  be  measured  in  money. 
The  real  loss  was  the  loss  of  a  million  men,  on 
both  sides  put  together,  for  these  men  who  died 
were  of  the  nation's  best. 


CHAPTER  III 

THE   NAVAL  WAR :  1862 

Bull  Run  had  riveted  attention  on  the  land  be- 
tween the  opposing  capitals  and  on  the  armies 
fighting  there.  Very  few  people  were  thinking  of 
the  navies  and  the  sea.  And  yet  it  was  at  sea,  and 
not  on  land,  that  the  Union  had  a  force  against 
which  the  Confederates  could  never  prevail,  a  force 
which  gradually  cut  them  off  from  the  whole  world's 
base  of  war  supplies,  a  force  which  enabled  the 
Union  armies  to  get  and  keep  the  strangle-hold 
which  did  the  South  to  death. 

The  blockade  declared  in  April  was  no  empty 
threat.  The  sails  of  Federal  frigates,  still  more  the 
sinister  black  hulls  of  the  new  steam  men-of-war, 
meant  that  the  South  was  fast  becoming  a  land 
besieged,  with  every  outwork  accessible  by  water 
exposed  to  sudden  attack  and  almost  certain  cap- 
ture by  any  good  amphibious  force  of  soldiers  and 
sailors  combined. 

84 


THE  NAVAL  WAR:  1862  85 

Sea-power  kept  the  North  in  affluence  while  it 
starved  the  South.  Sea-power  held  Maryland  in  its 
relentless  grip  and  did  more  than  land-power  to 
keep  her  in  the  Union.  Sea-power  was  the  chief 
factor  in  saving  Washington.  Sea-power  enabled 
the  North  to  hold  such  points  of  vantage  as  For- 
tress Monroe  right  on  the  flank  of  the  South.  And 
sea-power  likewise  enabled  the  North  to  take 
or  retake  other  points  of  similar  importance:  for 
instance,  Hatteras  Island. 

In  a  couple  of  days  at  the  end  of  August,  1861, 
the  Confederate  forts  at  Hatteras  Inlet,  North 
Carolina,  were  compelled  to  surrender  to  a  joint 
naval  and  military  expedition  under  Flag-Officer 
Stringham  and  Major-General  B.  F.  Butler.  The 
immediate  result,  besides  the  capture  of  seven  hun- 
dred men,  was  the  control  of  the  best  entrance  to 
North  Carolina  waters,  which  entailed  the  stop- 
page of  many  oversea  supplies  for  the  Confederate 
army.  The  ulterior  result  was  the  seciu-ing  of  a 
base  from  which  a  further  invasion  could  be  made 
with  great  advantage. 

The  naval  campaign  of  the  following  year  was 
truly  epoch-making;  for  the  duel  between  the 
Monitor  and  Merrimac  in  Hampton  Roads  on 


86  CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

March  9,  1862,  was  the  first  action  ever  fought 
between  ironclad  steam  men-of-war. 

Eleven  months  earlier  the  Federal  Government 
had  suddenly  abandoned  the  Norfolk  Navy  Yard; 
though  their  strongest  garrison  was  at  Fortress 
Monroe,  only  twelve  miles  north  along  a  waterway 
which  was  under  the  absolute  control  of  their  navy, 
and  though  the  Confederates  had  nothing  but  an 
inadequate  little  untrained  force  on  the  spot. 
Among  the  spoils  of  war  falling  into  Confederate 
hands  were  twelve  hundred  guns  and  the  Merri- 
mac,  a  forty-gun  steam  frigate.  The  Merrimac, 
though  fired  and  scuttled  by  the  Federals,  was 
hove  up,  cut  down,  plated  over,  and  renamed  the 
Virginia.  (History,  however,  knows  her  only  as 
the  Merrimac.)  John  L.  Porter,  Naval  Construc- 
tor to  the  Confederate  States,  had  made  a  model  of 
an  ironclad  at  Pittsburgh  fifteen  years  before;  and 
he  now  applied  this  model  to  the  rebuilding  of  the 
Merrimac.  He  first  cut  down  everything  above 
the  water  line,  except  the  gun  deck,  which  he  con- 
verted into  a  regular  citadel  with  flat  top,  sides 
sloping  at  thirty-five  degrees,  and  ends  stopping 
short  of  the  ship's  own  ends  by  seventy  feet  fore 
and  aft.  The  effect,  therefore,  was  that  of  an  iron- 
clad citadel  built  on  the  midships  of  a  submerged 


THE  NAVAL  WAR:  1862  87 

frigate's  hull.  The  four-inch  iron  plating  of  the 
citadel  knuckled  over  the  wooden  sides  two  feet 
under  water.  The  engines,  which  the  South  had 
no  means  of  replacing,  were  the  old  ones  which  had 
been  condemned  before  being  sunk.  A  four-foot 
castiron  ram  was  clamped  on  to  the  bow.  Ten 
guns  were  mounted:  six  nine-inch  smooth-bores, 
with  two  six-inch  and  two  seven-inch  rifles.  Com- 
modore Franklin  Buchanan  took  command  and 
had  magnificent  professional  officers  under  him. 
But  the  crew,  three  hundred  strong,  were  mostly 
landsmen;  for,  as  in  the  case  of  the  Ai-my,  the 
men  of  the  Navy  nearly  all  took  sides  with  the 
North,  and  the  South  had  very  few  seamen  of  any 
other  kind. 

To  oppose  the  Merrimac  the  dilatory  North  con- 
tracted with  John  Ericsson  the  Swede,  who  had  to 
build  the  Monitor  much  smaller  than  the  Merrimac 
owing  to  pressure  of  time.  He  enjoyed,  however, 
enormous  advantages  in  every  other  respect,  owing 
to  the  vastly  superior  resources  of  the  North  in 
marine  engineering,  armor-plating,  and  all  other 
points  of  naval  construction.  The  Monitor  was 
launched  at  New  York  on  January  30,  1862,  the 
hundredth  day  after  the  laying  of  her  keel-plate. 
Her  length  over  all  was  172  feet,  her  beam  was  41, 


88  CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

and  her  draught  only  10  —  less  than  half  the 
draught  of  the  Merrimac.  Her  whole  crew  num- 
bered only  58;  but  every  single  one  was  a  trained 
professional  naval  seaman  who  had  volunteered  for 
dangerous  service  under  Captain  John  L.  Worden. 
She  was  not  a  good  sea  boat;  and  she  nearly  foun- 
dered on  her  way  down  from  New  York  to  Fortress 
Monroe.  Her  underwater  hull  was  shipshape 
enough;  but  her  superstructure  —  a  round  iron 
tower  resting  on  a  very  low  deck  —  was  not.  Con- 
temptuous eye-witnesses  described  her  very  well 
as  looking  like  a  tin  can  on  a  shingle  or  a  cheese- 
box  on  a  raft.  She  carried  only  two  guns,  eleven- 
inchers,  both  mounted  inside  her  turret,  which 
revolved  by  machinery;  but  their  180-pound  shot 
were  far  more  powerful  than  any  aboard  the  Merri- 
mac. In  maneuvering  the  Monitor  enjoyed  an 
immense  advantage,  with  her  light  draft,  strong 
engines,  and  well-protected  screws  and  rudder. 

On  the  eighth  of  March,  a  lovely  spring  day,  the 
Merrimac  made  her  trial  trip  by  going  into  action 
with  her  wheezy  old  engines,  lubberly  crew,  and  the 
guns  she  had  never  yet  fired.  She  shoveled  along 
at  only  five  knots;  but  the  Confederate  garrisons 
cheered  her  to  the  echo.  Seven  miles  north  she 
came  upon  the  astonished  fifty-gun  Congress  and 


THE  NAVAL  WAR:  1862  89 

thirty-gun  Cumberland  swinging  drowsily  at  anchor 
off  Newport  News,  with  then*  boats  alongside  and 
the  men's  wash  drying  in  the  rigging.  Yet  the 
surprised  frigates  opened  fire  at  twelve  hundred 
yards  and  were  joined  by  the  shore  batteries,  all 
converging  on  the  Merrimac,  from  whose  iron  sides 
the  shot  glanced  up  without  doing  more  than  ham- 
mer her  hard  and  start  a  few  rivets.  Closing  in  at 
top  speed  —  barely  six  knots  —  the  Merrimac  gave 
the  Congress  a  broadside  before  ramming  the  Cum- 
berland and  opening  a  hole  "wide  enough  to  drive 
in  a  horse  and  cart."  Backing  clear  and  turning 
the  after-pivot  gun,  the  Merrimac  then  got  in  three 
raking  shells  against  the  Congress,  which  grounded 
when  trying  to  escape.  Meanwhile  the  Cumberland 
was  listing  over  and  rapidly  filling,  though  she  kept 
up  the  fight  to  the  very  last  gasp.  When  she  sank 
with  a  roar  her  topmasts  still  showed  above  water 
and  her  colors  waved  defiance.  An  hour  later  the 
terribly  mauled  Congress  surrendered;  whereupon 
her  crew  was  rescued  and  she  was  set  on  fire.  By 
this  time  various  smaller  craft  on  both  sides  had 
joined  the  fray.  But  the  big  Minnesota  still  re- 
mained, though  aground  and  apparently  at  the 
mercy  of  the  Merrimac.  The  great  draught  of 
the  Merrimac  and  the  setting  in  of  the  ebb  tide, 


90  CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

however,  made   the   Confederates   draw  off  for 
the  night. 

Next  morning  they  saw  the  "tin  can  on  the 
shingle  "  between  them  and  their  prey.  The  Moni- 
tor and  Merrimac  then  began  their  epoch-making 
fight.  The  patchwork  engines  of  the  deep-draught 
Merrimac  made  her  as  unhandy  as  if  she  had 
been  water-logged,  while  the  light-draught  Monitor 
could  not  only  play  round  her  when  close-to  but 
maneuver  all  over  the  surrounding  shallows  as  well. 
The  Merrimac  put  her  last  ounce  of  steam  into  an 
attempt  to  ram  her  agile  opponent.  But  a  touch 
of  the  Monitor" s  helm  swung  her  round  just  in  time 
to  make  the  blow  perfectly  harmless.  The  Merri- 
mac simply  barged  into  her,  grated  harshly  against 
her  iron  side,  and  sheered  off  beaten.  The  firing 
was  furious  and  mostly  at  point-blank  range.  Once 
the  Monitor  fired  while  the  sides  were  actually 
touching.  The  concussion  was  so  tremendous  that 
all  the  Merrimac's  gun-crews  aft  were  struck  down 
flat,  with  bleeding  ears  and  noses.  But  in  spite  of 
this  her  boarders  were  called  away;  whereupon 
every  man  who  could  handle  cutlass  and  revolver 
made  ready  and  stood  by.  The  Monitor,  however, 
dropped  astern  too  quickly;  and  the  wallowing 
Merrimac  had  no  chance  of  catching  her .   The  fight 


THE  NAVAL  WAR:  1862  91 

had  lasted  all  through  that  calm  spring  morning 
when  the  Monitor  steamed  off,  across  the  shallows, 
still  keeping  carefully  between  the  Merrimac  and 
Minnesota.  It  was  a  drawn  battle.  But  the  effect 
was  that  of  a  Northern  victory;  for  the  Merrimac 
was  balked  of  her  easy  prey,  and  the  North  gained 
time  to  outbuild  the  South  completely. 

Outbuilding  the  South  of  course  meant  tighten- 
ing the  "anaconda"  system  of  blockade,  in  the  en- 
tangling coils  of  which  the  South  was  caught  al- 
ready. Three  thousand  miles  of  Southern  coastline 
was,  however,  more  than  the  North  could  blockade 
or  even  watch  to  its  own  satisfaction  all  at  once. 
Fogs,  storms,  and  clever  ruses  played  their  part  on 
behalf  of  those  who  ran  the  blockade,  especially 
during  the  first  two  years ;  and  it  was  almost  more 
than  human  nature  could  stand  to  keep  forever  on 
the  extreme  alert,  day  after  dreary  day,  through 
the  deadly  boredom  of  a  long  blockade.  Like  caged 
eagles  the  crews  passed  many  a  weary  week  of 
dull  monotony  without  the  chance  of  swooping 
on  a  chase.  "Smoke  ho!"  would  be  called  from 
the  main-topgallant  cross-tree.  "Where  away?" 
would  be  called  back  from  the  deck.  "Up  the 
river.  Sir!"  —  and  there  it  would  stay,  the  very 
mark  of  hope  deferred.    Occasionally  a  cotton  ship 


92  CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

would  make  a  dash,  with  lights  out  on  a  dark  night, 
or  through  a  dense  fog,  when  her  smoke  might  some- 
times be  conned  from  the  tops.  Occasionally,  too, 
a  foreigner  would  try  to  run  in,  and  not  seldom 
succeed,  because  only  the  fastest  vessels  tried  to 
run  the  blockade  after  the  first  few  months.  But 
the  general  experience  was  one  of  utter  boredom 
rarely  relieved  by  a  stroke  of  good  luck. 

The  South  could  not  break  the  blockade.  But 
the  North  could  tighten  it,  and  did  so  repeatedly, 
not  only  at  sea  but  by  establishing  strong  strategic 
centers  of  its  own  along  the  Southern  coast.  We 
have  seen  already  how  Hatteras  Island  was  taken 
in  '61,  five  weeks  after  Bull  Run.  Within  another 
three  weeks  Ship  Island  was  also  taken,  to  the  great 
disadvantage  of  the  Gulf  ports  and  the  correspond- 
ing advantage  of  the  Federal  fleet  blockading  them; 
for  Ship  Island  commanded  the  coastwise  channels 
between  Mobile  and  New  Orleans,  the  two  great 
scenes  of  Farragut's  success.  Then,  on  the  sev- 
enth of  November,  the  day  that  Grant  began  his 
triumphant  career  by  dealing  the  Confederates 
a  shrewd  strategic  blow  at  Belmont  in  Missouri, 
South  Carolina  suffered  a  worse  defeat  at  Port 
Royal  (where  she  lost  Forts  Beauregard  and  Walk- 
er) than  North  Carolina  had  suffered  at  Hatteras 


THE  NAVAL  WAR:  1862  93 

Island.  Admiral  S.  F.  Du  Pont  managed  the  na- 
val part  of  the  Port  Royal  expedition  with  con- 
summate skill,  especially  the  fine  fleet  action  off 
Hilton  Head  against  the  Southern  ships  and  forts. 
He  was  ably  seconded  by  General  Thomas  West 
Sherman,  commanding  the  troops. 

North  Carolina's  turn  soon  came  again,  when  she 
lost  Roanoke  Island  (and  with  it  the  command  of 
Albemarle  Sound)  on  February  8,  1862;  and  when 
she  also  had  Pamlico  Sound  shut  against  her  by  a 
joint  expedition  that  struck  down  her  defenses  as 
far  inland  as  Newbern  on  the  fourteenth  of  March. 
Then  came  the  turn  of  Georgia,  where  Fort  Pulaski, 
the  outpost  of  Savannah,  fell  to  the  Federals  on  the 
eleventh  of  April.  Within  another  month  Florida 
was  even  more  hardly  hit  when  the  pressure  of  the 
Union  fleet  and  army  on  Virginia  compelled  the 
South  to  use  as  reinforcements  the  garrison  that 
had  held  Pensacola  since  the  beginning  of  the  war. 

These  were  all  severe  blows  to  the  Southern 
cause.  But  they  were  nothing  to  the  one  which 
immediately  followed. 

The  idea  of  an  attack  on  New  Orleans  had  been 
conceived  in  June,  '61,  by  Commander  (afterwards 
Admiral)  D.  D.  Porter,  of  the  U.  S.  S.  Powhatan, 
when  he  was  helping  to  blockade  the  Mississippi. 


94  CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

The  Navy  Department  had  begun  thinking  over 
the  same  idea  in  September  and  had  worked  out  a 
definite  scheme.  New  Orleans  was  of  immense 
strategic  importance,  as  being  the  link  between  the 
sea  and  river  systems  of  the  war.  The  mass  of 
people  and  their  politicians,  on  both  sides,  absurdly 
thought  of  New  Orleans  as  the  objective  of  a  land 
invasion  from  the  north.  Happily  for  the  Union 
cause,  Gustavus  Fox,  Assistant  Secretary  of  the 
Navy,  knew  better  and  persuaded  his  civilian  chief, 
Gideon  Welles,  that  this  was  work  for  a  joint  ex- 
pedition, with  the  navy  first,  the  army  second. 
The  navy  could  take  New  Orleans.  The  army 
would  have  to  hold  it. 

The  squadron  destined  for  this  enterprise  was 
commanded  by  David  Glasgow  Farragut,  who  ar- 
rived at  Ship  Island  on  February  20,  1862,  in  the 
Hartford,  the  famous  man-of-war  that  carried  his 
flag  in  triumph  to  the  end.  Unlike  Lee  and  Jack- 
son, Grant  and  Sherman,  the  other  four  great 
leaders  in  the  Civil  War,  Farragut  was  not  an 
American  whose  ancestors  on  both  sides  had  come 
from  the  British  Isles.  Like  Lee,  however,  he  was 
of  very  ancient  lineage,  one  of  his  ancestors,  Don 
Pedro  Ferragut,  having  held  a  high  command 
under  the  King  of  Aragon  in  the  Moorish  wars  of 


THE  NAVAL  WAR:  1862  95 

the  thirteenth  century.  Farragut's  father  was  a 
pure-blooded  Spaniard,  born  under  the  British  flag 
in  Minorca  in  1755.  Half  Spanish,  half  South- 
ern by  descent,  Farragut  was  wholly  Southern  by 
family  environment.  His  mother,  Elizabeth  Shine, 
was  a  native  of  North  Carolina.  He  spent  his  early 
boyhood  in  New  Orleans.  Both  his  first  and  sec- 
ond wives  came  from  Virginia;  and  he  made  his 
home  at  Norfolk.  On  the  outbreak  of  the  war,  how- 
ever, he  immediately  went  North  and  applied  for 
employment  with  the  Union  fleet. 

Farragut  was  the  oldest  of  the  five  great  leaders, 
being  now  sixty  years  of  age,  while  Lee  was  fifty- 
five,  Sherman  forty-two.  Grant  forty,  and  Jackson 
thirty-eight.  He  was,  however,  fit  as  an  athlete  in 
training,  able  to  turn  a  handspring  on  his  birthday 
and  to  hold  his  own  in  swordsmanship  against  any 
of  his  officers.  Of  middle  height,  strong  build,  and 
rather  plain  features,  he  did  not  attract  attention 
in  a  crowd.  But  his  alert  and  upright  carriage, 
keenly  interested  look,  and  genial  smile  impressed 
all  who  ever  knew  him  with  a  sense  of  native  kind- 
liness and  power.  Though  far  too  great  a  master  of 
the  art  of  war  to  interfere  with  his  subordinates  he 
always  took  care  to  understand  their  duties  from 
their  own  points  of  view  so  that  he  could  control 


96  CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

every  part  of  the  complex  naval  instruments  of 
war  —  human  and  material  alike  —  with  a  sure 
and  inspiring  touch.  His  one  weakness  as  a  leader 
was  his  generous  inclination  to  give  subordinates 
the  chance  of  distinguishing  themselves  when 
they  could  have  done  more  useful  service  in  a  less 
conspicuous  position. 

Farragut's  base  at  Ship  Island  was  about  a  hun- 
dred miles  east  from  the  Confederate  Forts  Jack- 
son and  St.  Philip.  These  forts  guarded  the  en- 
trance to  the  Mississippi.  Ninety  miles  above 
them  stood  New  Orleans,  to  which  they  gave  pro- 
tection and  from  which  they  drew  all  their  supplies. 
The  result  of  a  conference  at  Washington  was  an 
order  from  Welles  to  "reduce  the  defenses  which 
guard  the  approaches  to  New  Orleans."  But  Far- 
ragut's own  infinitely  better  plan  was  to  run  past 
the  forts  and  take  New  Orleans  first.  By  doing 
this  he  would  save  the  extra  loss  required  for  re- 
ducing the  forts  and  would  take  the  weak  defenses 
of  New  Orleans  entirely  by  surprise.  Then,  when 
New  Orleans  fell,  the  forts,  cut  off  from  all  sup- 
plies, would  have  to  surrender  without  the  firing  of 
another  shot.  Everything  depended  on  whether 
Farragut  could  run  past  without  too  much  loss. 
Profoundly  versed  in  all  the  factors  of  the  problem. 


fssmif^- 


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ADMIRAL   D.    G.    FARRAGUT 
Photograph  by  Brady. 


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war  —  huma 

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svas  his  g> 

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the  cl 

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Islar.c'                nt  a  hvi. 

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Washington  was  sv 

ri  Welles  to  "reduce  the  defenses 

guard  the  approaches  to  New  Or 

ragut's  o' 

the  forts 

this  h^'  i 

ducin. 

of  New  Orleans  entirely  ; 

.en,  when 

New  Orleans  fell,  the  for 

1  all  sup- 

plies,  would  have  to  s^ 

L  the  firing  of 

'  ?r  shot.    Every 

i  on  wh  '^   • 

lit  could  run  ; 

_^o  mucl 

ly  versed  in 

IS  of  the  pre 

THE  NAVAL  WAR:  1862  97 

he  foresaw  that  his  solution  would  prove  right, 
while  Washington's  would  as  certainly  be  wrong. 
So,  taking  the  utmost  advantage  of  all  the  freedom 
that  his  general  instructions  allowed,  he  followed  a 
course  in  which  anything  short  of  complete  success 
would  mean  the  ruin  of  his  whole  career. 

The  forts  were  strong,  had  ninety  guns  that 
would  bear  on  the  jfleet,  and  were  well  placed,  one 
on  each  side  of  the  river.  But  they  suffered  from 
all  the  disadvantages  of  fixed  defenses  opposed 
by  a  mobile  enemy,  and  their  own  mobile  auxili- 
aries were  far  from  being  satisfactory.  The  best 
of  the  "River  Defense  Fleet,"  including  several 
rams,  had  been  ordered  up  to  Memphis,  so  sure 
was  the  Confederate  Government  that  the  attack 
would  come  from  the  north.  Two  home-made  iron- 
clads were  failures.  The  Louisiana's  engines  were 
not  ready  in  time;  and  her  captain  refused  to  be 
towed  into  the  position  near  the  boom  where  he 
could  do  the  enemy  most  harm.  The  Mississippi^ 
a  mere  floating  house,  built  by  ordinary  carpenters, 
never  reached  the  forts  at  all  and  was  burnt  by  her 
own  men  at  New  Orleans. 

Farragut  felt  sure  of  his  fleet.  He  had  four  splen- 
did new  men-of-war  that  formed  a  homogeneous 
squadron,  four   other  sizable  warships,  and  nine 


98  CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

new  gunboats.  All  spars  and  rigging  that  could  be 
dispensed  with  were  taken  down;  all  hulls  camou- 
flaged with  Mississippi  mud;  and  all  decks  whit- 
ened for  handiness  at  night.  A  weak  point,  how- 
ever, was  the  presence  of  mortar-boats  that  would 
have  been  better  out  of  the  way  altogether.  These 
boatshad  been  sent  to  bombard  the  forts, which,  ac- 
cording to  the  plan  preferred  by  the  Government, 
were  to  be  taken  before  New  Orleans  was  attacked. 
In  other  words,  the  Government  wished  to  cut  off 
the  branches  first;  while  Farragut  wished  to  cut 
down  the  tree  itself,  knowing  the  branches  must  fall 
with  the  trunk. 

On  the  eighteenth  of  April  the  mortar-boats  be- 
gan heaving  shells  at  the  forts.  But,  after  six 
days  of  bombardment,  the  forts  were  nowhere  near 
the  point  of  surrendering,  and  the  supply  of  shells 
had  begun  to  run  low. 

Meanwhile  the  squadron  had  been  busy  prepar- 
ing for  the  great  ordeal.  The  first  task  was  to 
break  the  boom  across  the  river.  This  boom  was 
placed  so  as  to  hold  the  ships  under  the  fire  of  the 
forts;  and  the  four-knot  spring  current  was  so 
strong  that  the  eight-knot  ships  could  not  make 
way  enough  against  it  to  cut  clear  through  with 
certainty.    Moreover,  the  middle  of  the  boom  was 


THE  NAVAL  WAR:  1862  99 

filled  in  by  eight  big  schooners,  chained  together, 
with  their  masts  and  rigging  dragging  astern  so  as 
to  form  a  most  awkward  entanglement.  Farra- 
gut's  fleet  captain,  Henry  H.  Bell,  taking  two  gun- 
boats, Itasca  and  Pinola,  under  Lieutenants  Cald- 
well and  Crosby ,  slipped  the  chains  of  one  schooner; 
whereupon  this  schooner  and  the  Itasca  swung 
back  and  grounded  under  fire  of  the  forts.  The 
Pinola  gallantly  stood  by,  helping  Itasca  clear. 
Then  Caldwell,  with  splendid  audacity  and  skill, 
steamed  up  through  the  narrow  gap,  turned  round, 
put  on  the  Itasca's  utmost  speed,  and,  with  the 
current  in  his  favor,  charged  full  tilt  against  the 
chains  that  still  held  fast.  For  one  breathless 
moment  the  little  Itasca  seemed  lost.  Her  bows 
rose  clear  out,  as,  quivering  from  stem  to  stern,  she 
was  suddenly  brought  up  short  from  top  speed  to 
nothing.  But,  in  another  fateful  minute,  with  a 
rending  crash,  the  two  nearest  schooners  gave  way 
and  swept  back  like  a  gate,  while  the  Itasca  herseK 
shot  clear  and  came  down  in  triumph  to  the  fleet. 
The  passage  was  made  on  the  twenty-fourth,  in 
line-ahead  (that  is,  one  after  another)  because 
Farragut  found  the  opening  narrower  than  he 
thought  it  should  be  for  two  columns  abreast,  at 
night,  under  fire,  and  against  the  spring  current. 


100        CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

Owing  to  the  configuration  of  the  channel  the  star- 
board column  had  to  weigh  first,  which  gave  the 
lead  to  the  500-ton  gunboat  Cayuga.  This  was  the 
one  weak  point,  because  the  leading  vessel,  drawing 
most  fire,  should  have  been  the  strongest.  The 
fault  was  Farragut's;  for  his  heart  got  the  better  of 
his  head  when  it  came  to  placing  Captain  Theodorus 
Bailey,  his  dauntless  second-in-command,  on  board 
a  vessel  fit  to  lead  the  starboard  column.  He  could 
not  bear  to  obscure  any  captain's  chances  of  dis- 
tinction by  putting  another  captain  over  him.  So 
Bailej'^  was  sent  to  the  best  vessel  commanded  by 
a  lieutenant. 

The  Cayuga's  navigating  oflicer,  finding  that  the 
guns  of  the  forts  were  all  trained  on  midstream, 
edged  in  towards  Fort  St.  Philip.  His  masts  were 
shot  to  pieces,  but  his  hull  drew  clear  without  great 
damage.  "Then,"  he  says,  "I  looked  back  for 
some  of  our  vessels;  and  my  heart  jumped  up  into 
my  mouth  when  I  found  I  could  not  see  a  single 
one.  I  thought  they  must  all  have  been  sunk  by 
the  forts."  But  not  a  ship  had  gone  down.  The 
three  big  ones  of  the  starboard  colunm  —  Pensa- 
cola,  Mississippi,  and  Oneida  —  closed  with  the 
fort  (so  that  the  gunners  on  both  sides  exchanged 
jeers  of  defiance)  and  kept  up  a  furious  fire  till  the 


THE  NAVAL  WAR:  1862  101 

lighter  craft  astern  slipped  past  safely  and  joined 
the  Cayuga  above. 

Meanwhile  the  Cayuga  had  been  attacked  by  a 
mob  of  Mississippi  steamers,  six  of  which  belonged 
to  the  original  fourteen  blessed  with  their  precious 
independence  by  Secretary  Benjamin,  "backed  by 
the  whole  Missouri  Delegation."  So  when  the  rest 
of  the  Federal  light  craft  came  up,  "all  sorts  of 
things  happened"  in  a  general  free  fight.  There 
was  no  lack  of  Confederate  courage;  but  an  utter 
absence  of  concerted  action  and  of  the  simplest 
kind  of  naval  skill,  except  on  the  part  of  the  two 
vessels  commanded  by  ex-ofl5cers  of  the  United 
States  Navy.  The  Federal  light  craft  cut  their  way 
through  their  unorganized  opponents  as  easily  as  a 
battalion  of  regulars  could  cut  through  a  mob  throw- 
ing stones.  But  the  only  two  Confederate  naval 
officers  got  clear  of  the  scrimmage  and  did  all  that 
skill  could  do  with  their  makeshift  little  craft 
against  the  Federal  fleet.  Kennon  singled  out  the 
Varuna  (the  only  one  of  Farragut's  vessels  that  was 
not  a  real  man-of-war),  raked  her  stern  with  the 
two  guns  of  his  own  much  inferior  vessel,  the  Gover- 
nor Moore,  and  rammed  her  into  a  sinking  condition. 
Warley  flew  at  bigger  game  with  his  little  ram,  the 
Manassas,  trying  three  of  the  large  men-of-war,  one 


102        CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

after  another,  as  they  came  upstream.  The  Pensa- 
cola  eluded  him  by  a  knowing  turn  of  her  helm  that 
roused  his  warmest  admiration.  The  Mississippi 
caught  the  blow  glancingly  on  her  quarter  and  got 
off  with  little  damage.  The  Brooklyn  was  taken 
fair  and  square  amidships;  but,  though  her  plank- 
ing was  crushed  in,  she  sprang  no  serious  leak 
and  went  on  with  the  fight.  The  wretched  little 
Confederate  engines  had  not  been  able  to  drive 
the  ram  home. 

The  Brooklyn  was  the  flagship  Hartford's  next- 
astern  and  the  Richmond's  next-ahead,  these  three 
forming  the  main  body  of  Farragut's  own  port 
column,  which  followed  hard  on  the  heels  of  the 
starboard  one,  so  hard,  indeed,  that  there  were 
only  twenty  minutes  between  the  first  shot  fired  by 
the  forts  at  the  Cayuga  and  the  first  shot  fired  by 
the  Hartford  at  the  forts.  Besides  the  forts  there 
was  the  Louisiana  floating  battery  that  helped  to 
swell  the  storm  of  shot  and  shell;  and  down  the 
river  came  a  fire-raft  gallantly  towed  by  a  tug. 
The  Hartford  sheered  off,  over  towards  Fort  St. 
Philip,  under  whose  guns  she  took  ground  by  the 
head  while  the  raft  closed  in  and  set  her  ablaze. 
Instantly  the  hands  on  fire  duty  sprang  to  their 
work.    But  the  flames  rushed  in  through  the  ports; 


THE  NAVAL  WAR:  1862  103 

and  the  men  were  forced  a  step  back.  Farragut 
at  once  called  out:  "Don't  flinch  from  the  fire, 
boys.  There's  a  hotter  fire  than  that  for  those 
who  don't  do  their  duty!"  Whereupon  they 
plied  their  hoses  to  such  good  effect  that  the  fire 
was  soon  got  under  control.  Farragut  calmly 
resumed  his  walk  up  and  down  the  poop,  while 
the  gunners  blew  the  gallant  little  tug  to  bits  and 
smashed  the  raft  in  pieces.  Then  he  stood  keenly 
watching  the  Hartford  back  clear,  gather  way,  and 
take  the  lead  upstream  again.  Every  now  and  then 
he  looked  at  the  pocket  compass  that  hung  from 
his  watch  chain;  though,  for  the  most  part,  he  tried 
to  scan  a  scene  of  action  lit  only  by  the  flashes  of 
the  guns.  The  air  was  dense  and  very  still;  so 
the  smoke  of  guns  and  funnels  hung  like  a  pall 
over  both  the  combatants  while  the  desperate  fight 
went  on. 

At  last  the  fleet  fought  through  and  reached  the 
clearer  atmosphere  above  the  forts;  all  but  the  last 
three  gunboats,  which  were  driven  back  by  the  fire. 
Then  Farragut  immediately  sent  word  to  General 
Benjamin  F.  Butler  that  the  troops  could  be 
brought  up  by  the  bayous  that  ran  parallel  to 
the  river  out  of  range  of  the  forts.  But  the  Gen- 
eral, having  taken  in  the  situation  at  a  glance  from  a 


104        CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

transport  just  below  the  scene  of  action,  had  begun 
to  collect  his  men  at  Sable  Island,  twelve  miles  be- 
hind Fort  St.  Philip,  long  before  Farragut's  mes- 
senger could  reach  him  by  way  of  the  Quarantine 
Bayou.  From  Sable  Island  the  troops  were  taken 
by  the  transports  to  a  point  on  the  Mississippi  five 
miles  above  Fort  St.  Philip. 

After  a  well-earned  rest  the  whole  fleet  moved  up 
to  New  Orleans  on  the  twenty-fifth,  turning  the 
city's  lines  five  miles  downstream  without  the  loss 
of  a  man,  for  the  simple  reason  that  these  had  been 
built  only  to  resist  an  army,  and  so  lay  with  flanks 
entirely  open  to  a  fleet.  General  Lovell  (the  able 
commander  who  had  so  often  warned  the  Confed- 
erate Government  of  the  danger  from  the  sea)  at 
once  evacuated  the  defenseless  city.  The  best  of 
the  younger  men  were  away  with  the  armies.  The 
best  of  the  older  men  were  too  few  for  the  storm. 
And  so  pandemonium  broke  loose.  Burning  boats, 
blazing  cotton,  and  a  howling  mob  greeted  Farra- 
gut's arrival.  But  after  the  forts  (now  completely 
cut  off  from  their  base)  had  surrendered  on  the 
twenty-eighth  a  landing  party  from  the  fleet  soon 
brought  the  mob  to  its  senses  by  planting  howitzers 
in  the  streets  and  lowering  the  Confederate  colors 
over  the  city  hall.    On  the  first  of  May  a  garrison 


THE  NAVAL  WAR:  1862  105 

of  Federal  troops  took  charge  of  New  Orleans  and 
kept  it  till  the  war  was  over. 

New  Orleans  was  a  most  pregnant  Federal  vic- 
tory; for  it  established  a  Union  base  at  the  great 
strategic  point  where  sea-power  and  land-power 
could  meet  most  effectively  in  Mississippi  waters. 

But  it  was  followed  by  a  perfect  anti-climax;  for 
the  Federal  Government,  having  planned  a  naval 
concentration  at  Vicksburg,  determined  to  put  the 
plan  in  operation;  though  all  the  naval  and  mili- 
tary means  concerned  made  such  a  plan  im- 
possible of  execution  in  1862.  Amphibious  forces 
—  fleets  and  armies  combined  —  were  essential. 
There  was  no  use  in  parading  up  and  down  the 
river,  however  triumphantly,  so  long  as  the  force 
employed  could  only  hold  the  part  of  the  chan- 
nel within  actual  range  of  its  guns.  The  Con- 
federates could  be  driven  off  the  Mississippi  at 
any  given  point.  But  there  was  nothing  to  pre- 
vent them  from  coming  back  again  when  once 
the  ships  had  passed.  An  army  to  seize  and 
hold  strategic  points  ashore  was  absolutely  indis- 
pensable. Then,  and  only  then,  Farragut's  long 
line  of  communication  with  his  base  at  New  Or- 
leans would  be  safe,  and  the  land  in  which  the 


106        CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

Mississippi  was  the  principal  highway  could  itself 
be  conquered. 

"If  the  Mississippi  expedition  from  Cairo  shall 
not  have  descended  the  river,  you  will  take  ad- 
vantage of  the  panic  to  push  a  strong  force  up  the 
river  to  take  all  their  defenses  in  rear."  These 
were  the  orders  Farragut  had  to  obey  if  he  suc- 
ceeded in  taking  New  Orleans.  They  were  soon 
reinforced  by  this  reminder:  "The  only  anxiety 
we  feel  is  to  know  if  you  have  followed  up  your 
instructions  and  pushed  a  strong  force  up  the  river 
to  meet  the  Western  flotilla."  Farragut  therefore 
felt  bound  to  obey  and  do  all  that  could  be  done  to 
carry  on  a  quite  impossible  campaign.  So,  with  a 
useless  landing  party  of  only  fifteen  hundred  troops, 
he  pushed  up  to  Vicksburg,  four  hundred  miles 
above  New  Orleans.  The  nearest  Federal  army 
had  been  halted  by  the  Confederate  defenses  above 
Memphis,  another  four  hundred  higher  still. 

There  were  several  reasons  why  Farragut  should 
not  have  gone  up.  His  big  ships  would  certainly 
be  stranded  if  he  went  up  and  waited  for  the  army 
to  come  down;  moreover,  when  stranded,  these 
ships  would  be  captured  while  waiting,  because 
both  banks  were  swarming  with  vastly  outnumber- 
ing  Confederate  troops.     Then,  such  a  disaster 


THE  NAVAL  WAR:  1862  107 

would  more  than  offset  the  triumph  of  New  Orleans 
by  still  further  depressing  Federal  morale  at  a  time 
when  the  Federal  arms  were  doing  none  too  well 
near  Washington.  Finally,  all  the  force  that  was 
being  worse  than  wasted  up  the  Mississippi  might 
have  been  turned  against  Mobile,  which,  at  that 
time,  was  much  weaker  than  the  defenses  Farragut 
had  already  overcome.  But  the  people  of  the 
North  were  clamorous  for  more  victories  along  the 
line  to  which  the  press  had  drawn  their  gaze.  So 
the  Government  ordered  the  fleet  to  carry  on  this 
impossible  campaign. 

Farragut  did  his  best.  Within  a  month  of  pass- 
ing the  forts  he  had  not  only  captured  New  Orleans 
and  repaired  the  many  serious  damages  suffered  by 
his  fleet  but  had  captured  Baton  Rouge,  and  taken 
even  his  biggest  ships  to  Vicksburg,  five  hundred 
miles  from  the  Gulf,  against  a  continuous  current, 
and  right  through  the  heart  of  a  hostile  land. 
Finding  that  there  were  thirty  thousand  Confed- 
erates in,  near,  or  within  a  day  of  Vicksburg  he 
and  General  Thomas  Williams  agreed  that  nothing 
could  be  done  with  the  fifteen  hundred  troops  which 
formed  the  only  landing  party .  Sickness  and  casual- 
ties had  reduced  the  ships'  companies;  so  there  were 
not  even  a  few  seamen  to  spare  as  reinforcements 


108        CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

for  these  fifteen  hundred  soldiers,  whom  Butler 
had  sent,  under  Wilhams,  with  the  fleet.  Then 
Farragut  turned  back,  his  stores  running  danger- 
ously short  owing  to  the  enormous  difficulties 
of  keeping  open  his  long,  precarious  line  of  com- 
munications. "I  arrived  in  New  Orleans  with  five 
or  six  days'  provisions  and  one  anchor,  and  am  now 
trying  to  procure  others.  .  .  .  Fighting  is  nothing 
to  the  evils  of  the  river  —  getting  on  shore,  running 
foul  of  one  another,  losing  anchors,  etc."  In  a  con- 
fidential letter  home  he  is  still  more  outspoken. 
"They  will  keep  us  in  this  river  till  the  vessels 
break  down  and  all  the  little  reputation  we  have 
made  has  evaporated.  The  Government  appears 
to  think  that  we  can  do  anything.  They  expect  me 
to  navigate  the  Mississippi  nine  hundred  miles  in 
the  face  of  batteries,  ironclad  rams,  etc.;  and  yet 
with  all  the  ironclad  vessels  they  have  North  they 
could  not  get  to  Norfolk  or  Richmond." 

Back  from  Washington  came  still  more  urgent 
orders  to  join  the  Mississippi  flotilla  which  was 
coming  down  to  Vicksburg  from  the  north  under 
Flag  Officer  Charles  H.  Davis.  So  once  more  the 
fleet  worked  its  laboriously  wasteful  way  up  to 
Vicksburg,  where  it  passed  the  forts  with  the 
help  of  Porter's  flotilla  of  mortar-boats  on  the 


THE  NAVAL  WAR:  1862  '    109 

twenty-eighth  of  June  and  joined  Davis  on  the 
first  of  July.  There,  in  useless  danger,  the  joint 
forces  lay  till  the  fifteenth,  the  day  on  which 
Grant's  own  "most  anxious  period  of  the  war" 
began  on  the  Memphis-Corinth  line,  four  hundred 
miles  above. 

Farragut,  getting  very  anxious  about  the  shoal- 
ing of  the  water,  was  then  preparing  to  run  down 
when  he  heard  firing  in  the  Yazoo,  a  tributary  that 
joined  the  Mississippi  four  miles  higher  up.  This 
came  from  a  fight  between  one  of  his  reconnoiter- 
ing  gunboats,  the  Carondelet,  and  the  Arkansas,  an 
ironclad  Confederate  ram  that  would  have  been 
very  dangerous  indeed  if  her  miserable  engines  had 
been  able  to  give  her  any  speed.  She  was  beating 
the  Carondelet,  but  getting  her  smoke-stack  so 
badly  holed  that  her  speed  dropped  down  to  one 
knot,  which  scarcely  gave  her  steerage  way  and 
made  her  unable  to  ram.  Firing  hard  she  ran  the 
gauntlet  of  both  fleets  and  took  refuge  under  the 
Vicksburg  bluffs,  whence  she  might  run  out  and 
ram  the  Union  vessels  below.  Farragut  therefore 
ran  down  himself,  hoping  to  smash  her  by  succes- 
sive broadsides  in  passing.  But  the  diflficulties  of 
the  passage  wasted  the  daylight,  so  that  he  had  to 
run  by  at  night.    She  therefore  survived  his  attack, 


no        CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

and  went  downstream  to  join  the  Confederates 
against  Baton  Rouge.  But  her  engines  gave  way 
before  she  got  there;  and  she  had  to  be  blown  up. 

Farragut  was  back  at  New  Orleans  before  the 
end  of  July.  On  the  fifth  of  August  the  Confeder- 
ates made  their  attack  on  Baton  Rouge;  but  were 
beaten  back  by  the  Union  garrison  aided  by  three 
of  Farragut's  gunboats  and  two  larger  vessels  from 
Davis's  command.  The  losses  were  not  very  severe 
on  either  side;  but  the  Union  lost  a  leader  of  really 
magnificent  promise  in  its  commanding  general, 
Thomas  Williams,  a  great-hearted,  cool-headed 
man  and  most  accomplished  oflBcer.  The  garrison 
of  Baton  Rouge,  being  too  small  and  sickly  and 
exposed,  was  withdrawn  to  New  Orleans  a  few 
days  later. 

Then  Farragut  at  last  returned  to  the  Gulf 
blockade.  Davis  went  back  up  the  river,  where  he 
was  succeeded  by  D.  D.  Porter  in  October.  And 
the  Confederates,  warned  of  what  was  coming, 
made  Port  Hudson  and  Vicksburg  as  strong  as 
they  could.  Vicksburg  was  now  the  only  point 
they  held  on  the  Mississippi  where  there  were  rails 
on  both  sides;  and  the  Red  River,  flowing  in  from 
the  West  between  Vicksburg  and  Port  Hudson,  was 
the  only  good  line  of  communication  connecting 


THE  NAVAL  WAR:  1862  111 

them  with  Texas,  whence  so  much  of  their  meat 
was  obtained. 

For  three  months  Farragut  directed  the  Gulf 
blockade  from  Pensacola,  where,  on  the  day  of  his 
arrival,  the  twentieth  of  August,  he  was  the  first 
American  to  hoist  an  admiral's  flag.  The  rank  of 
rear-admiral  in  the  United  States  Navy  had  been 
created  on  the  previous  sixteenth  of  July;  and 
Farragut  was  the  senior  of  the  first  three  oflScers 
upon  whom  it  was  conferred. 

Farragut  became  the  ranking  admiral  just  when 
the  United  States  Navy  was  having  its  hardest 
struggle  to  do  its  fivefold  duty  well.  There  was 
commerce  protection  on  the  high  seas,  blockade 
along  the  coast,  cooperation  with  the  army  on 
salt  water  and  on  fresh,  and  of  course  the  de- 
struction of  the  nascent  Confederate  forces  afloat. 
But  perhaps  a  knottier  problem  than  any  part 
of  its  combatant  duty  was  how  to  manage,  in  the 
very  midst  of  war,  that  rapid  expansion  of  its  own 
strength  for  which  no  government  had  let  it  pre- 
pare in  time  of  peace.  During  this  year  the  num- 
ber of  vessels  in  commission  grew  from  264  to  427. 
Yet  such  a  form  of  expansion  was  much  simpler 
than  that  of  the  enlisted  men;  and  the  expansion 
of  even  the  most  highly  trained  enlisted  personnel 


112        CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

was  very  much  simpler  than  the  corresponding 
expansion  of  the  oflBcers.  Happily  for  the  United 
States  Navy  it  started  with  a  long  lead  over  its 
enemy.  More  happily  still  it  could  expand  with 
the  help  of  greatly  superior  resources.  Most 
happily  of  all,  the  sevenfold  expansion  that  was 
effected  before  the  war  was  over  could  be  made 
under  leaders  like  Farragut:  leaders,  that  is,  who, 
though  in  mere  numbers  they  were  no  more,  in 
proportion  to  their  whole  service,  than  the  flag  as 
mere  material  is  to  a  man-of-war,  were  yet,  as  is  the 
flag,  the  living  symbol  of  a  people's  soul. 

Commerce  protection  on  the  high  seas  was  an 
exceedingly  harassing  affair.  A  few  swift  raiders, 
having  the  initiative,  enjoyed  great  advantages 
over  a  far  larger  number  of  defending  vessels. 
Every  daring  raid  was  trumpeted  round  the  world, 
bringing  down  unmeasured,  and  often  unmerited, 
blame  on  the  defense.  The  most  successful  vigi- 
lance would,  on  the  other  hand,  pass  by  unheeded. 
The  Union  navy  lacked  the  means  of  patrolling 
the  sea  lanes  of  commerce  over  millions  and  mil- 
lions of  desolate  square  miles.  Consequently  the 
war-risk  insurance  rose  to  a  prohibitive  height  on 
vessels  flying  the  Stars  and  Stripes;  and,  as  a 
further  result,  enormous  transfers  were  made  to 


THE  NAVAL  WAR:  1862  113 

other  flags.  The  incessant  calls  for  recruits,  afloat 
and  ashore,  and  to  some  extent  the  lure  of  the 
western  lands,  also  robbed  the  merchant  service  of 
its  men.  Thus,  one  way  and  another,  the  glory 
of  the  old  merchant  marine  departed  with  the 
Civil  War. 

Blockade  was  more  to  the  point  than  any  at- 
tempt to  patrol  the  sea  lanes.  Yet  it  was  even 
more  harassing;  for  it  involved  three  distinct 
though  closely  correlated  kinds  of  operation:  not 
only  the  seizure,  in  conjunction  with  the  army,  of 
enemy  ports,  and  the  patrolling  of  an  enemy  coast- 
line three  thousand  miles  long,  but  also  the  patrol- 
ling of  those  oversea  ports  from  which  most  contra- 
band came.  This  oversea  patrol  was  the  most 
effective,  because  it  went  straight  to  the  source  of 
trouble.  But  it  required  extraordinary  vigilance, 
because  it  had  to  be  conducted  from  beyond  the 
three-mile  limit,  and  with  the  greatest  care  for  all 
the  rights  of  neutrals. 

By  mid-November  Farragut  was  back  at  New 
Orleans.  A  month  later  General  Banks  arrived 
with  reinforcements.  He  superseded  General 
Butler  and  was  under  orders  to  cooperate  with 
McClernand,  Grant's  second-in-command,  who 
was  to  come  down  the  Mississippi  from  Cairo.    But 


114        CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

the  proposed  meeting  of  the  two  armies  never  took 
place.  Banks  remained  south  of  Port  Hudson, 
McClernand  far  north  of  Vicksburg;  for,  as  we 
shall  see  in  the  next  chapter,  Sherman's  attempt 
to  take  Vicksburg  from  the  North  failed  on  the 
twenty-ninth  of  December. 

The  naval  and  river  campaigns  of  '62  thus  ended 
in  disappointment  for  the  Union.  And,  on  New 
Year's  Day,  Galveston,  which  Farragut  had  occu- 
pied in  October  without  a  fight  and  which  was 
lightly  garrisoned  by  three  hundred  soldiers,  fell 
into  Confederate  hands  under  most  exasperating 
circumstances.  After  the  captain  and  first  lieu- 
tenant of  the  U.  S.  S.  Harriet  Lane  had  been  shot 
by  the  riflemen  aboard  two  cotton-clad  steamers 
the  next  oflBcer  tamely  surrendered.  Commander 
Renshaw,  who  was  in  charge  of  the  blockade, 
amply  redeemed  the  honor  of  the  Navy  by  refusing 
to  surrender  the  Westfield,  in  spite  of  the  odds 
against  him,  and  by  blowing  her  up  instead.  But 
when  he  died  at  the  post  of  duty  the  remaining 
Union  vessels  escaped;  and  the  blockade  was  raised 
for  a  week. 

After  that  Commodore  H.  H.  Bell,  one  of  Farra- 
gut's  best  men,  closed  in  with  a  grip  which  never 
let  go.    Yet  even  Bell  suffered  a  reverse  when  he 


THE  NAVAL  WAR:  1862  115 

sent  the  U.  S.  S.  Hatter  as  to  overhaul  a  strange 
vessel  that  lured  her  off  some  fifteen  miles  and 
sank  her  in  a  thirteen-minute  fight.  This  stranger 
was  the  Alabama,  then  just  beginning  her  famous 
or  notorious  career.  Nor  were  these  the  only 
Union  troubles  in  the  Gulf  during  the  first  three 
weeks  of  the  new  year.  Commander  J.  N.  Maffitt 
ran  the  Florida  out  of  Mobile,  right  through 
the  squadron  that  had  been  specially  strengthened 
to  deal  with  her;  and  the  shore  defenses  of  the  Sa- 
bine Pass,  like  those  of  Galveston,  fell  into  Con- 
federate hands  again,  to  remain  there  till  the  war 
was  over. 

In  spite  of  all  failures,  however,  Farragut  still 
had  the  upper  hand  along  the  Gulf,  and  up  the 
Mississippi  as  far  as  New  Orleans,  without  which 
admirable  base  the  River  War  of  '62  could  never 
have  prepared  the  way  for  Grant's  magnificent 
victory  in  the  River  War  of  '63. 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE  RIVER  war:  1862 

The  military  front  stretched  east  and  west  across 
the  border  States  from  the  Mississippi  Valley  to  the 
sea.  This  immense  and  fluctuating  front,  under  its 
various  and  often  changed  commanders,  was  never 
a  well  coordinated  whole.  The  Alleghany  Moun- 
tains divided  the  eastern  or  Virginian  wing  from 
the  western  or  "River"  wing.  Yet  there  was  al- 
ways more  or  less  connection  between  these  two 
main  parts,  and  the  fortunes  of  one  naturally 
affected  those  of  the  other.  Most  eyes,  both  at 
home  and  abroad,  were  fixed  on  the  Virginian  wing, 
where  the  Confederate  capital  stood  little  more 
than  a  hundred  miles  from  Washington,  where  the 
greatest  rival  armies  fought,  and  where  decisive 
victory  was  bound  to  have  the  most  momentous 
consequences.  But  the  River  wing  was  hardly  less 
important;  for  there  the  Union  Government  actu- 
ally hoped  to  reach  these  three  supreme  objectives 

1J6 


THE  RIVER  WAR:  1862  117 

in  this  one  campaign:  the  absolute  possession  of 
the  border  States,  the  undisputed  right  of  way  along 
the  Mississippi  from  Cairo  to  the  Gulf,  and  the 
triumphant  invasion  of  the  lower  South  in  conjunc- 
tion with  the  final  conquest  of  Virginia. 

V^e  have  seen  already  how  the  Union  navy,  aided 
by  the  army,  won  its  way  up  the  Mississippi  from 
the  Gulf  to  Baton  Rouge,  but  failed  to  secure  a 
single  point  beyond.  We  shall  now  see  how  the 
Union  army,  aided  by  the  navy,  won  its  way  down 
the  Mississippi  from  Cairo  to  Memphis,  and  fairly 
attained  the  first  objective  —  the  possession  of  the 
border  States;  but  how  it  also  failed  from  the  north, 
as  the  others  had  failed  from  the  south,  to  gain  a 
footing  on  the  crucial  stretch  between  Vicksburg 
and  Port  Hudson.  One  more  year  was  required  to 
win  the  Mississippi;  two  more  to  invade  the  lower 
South;  three  to  conquer  Virginia. 

Just  after  the  fall  of  Fort  Sumter  the  Union 
Government  had  the  foresight  to  warn  James  B. 
Eads,  the  well-known  builder  of  Mississippi  jetties, 
that  they  would  probably  draw  upon  his  "  thorough 
knowledge  of  our  Western  rivers  and  the  use  of 
steam  on  them."  But  it  was  not  till  August  that 
they  gave  him  the  contract  for  the  regular  gunboat 


118        CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

flotilla;  and  it  was  not  till  the  following  year  that 
his  vessels  began  their  work.  In  the  meantime  the 
armies  were  asking  for  all  sorts  of  transport  and 
protective  craft.  So  the  first  flotilla  on  Mississip- 
pi waters  started  under  the  War  (not  the  Navy) 
Department,  though  manned  under  the  executive 
orders  of  Commander  John  Rodgers,  U.  S.  N.,  who 
bought  three  river  steamers  at  Cincinnati,  lowered 
their  engines,  strengthened  their  frames,  protected 
their  decks,  and  changed  them  into  gunboats. 

The  first  phase  of  the  clash  in  this  land  of  navi- 
gable rivers  had  ended,  as  we  have  seen  already, 
with  the  taking  of  Boonville  on  the  Missouri  by 
that  staunch  and  daring  Union  regular,  General 
Nathaniel  Lyon,  on  June  17,  1861.  Boonville  was 
a  stunning  blow  to  secession  in  those  parts.  Con- 
federate hopes,  however,  again  rose  high  when  the 
news  of  Bull  Run  came  through.  At  this  time 
General  John  C.  Fremont  was  taking  command  of 
all  the  Union  forces  in  the  "Western  Department," 
which  included  Illinois  and  everything  between  the 
Mississippi  and  the  Rockies.  Fremont's  command, 
however,  was  short  and  full  of  trouble.  Round  his 
headquarters  at  St.  Louis  the  Confederate  colors 
were  flaunted  in  his  face.  His  requisitions  for  arms 
and  money  were  not  met  at  Washington.    Union 


THE  RIVER  WAR:  1862  119 

regiments  marched  in  without  proper  equipment 
and  with  next  to  no  suppHes.  There  were  boards 
of  inquiry  on  his  contracts.  There  were  endless 
cross-purposes  between  him  and  Washington. 
And  early  in  November  he  was  transferred  to  West 
Virginia  just  as  he  was  about  to  attack  with  what 
seemed  to  him  every  prospect  of  success.  He 
had  not  succeeded.  But  he  had  done  good  work 
in  fortifying  St.  Louis;  in  ordering  gunboats, 
tugs,  and  mortar-boats;  in  producing  some  kind 
of  system  out  of  utter  confusion;  in  trusting 
good  men  like  Lyon;  and  in  sending  the  then 
unknown  Ulysses  Grant  to  take  command  at 
Cairo,  the  excellent  strategic  base  where  the  Ohio 
joins  the  Mississippi. 

The  most  determined  fighting  that  took  place 
during  Fremont's  command  was  brought  on  by 
Lyon,  who  attacked  Ben  McCulloch  at  W^ilson's 
Creek,  in  southwest  Missouri,  on  the  tenth  of 
August.  Though  McCulloch  had  ten  thousand, 
against  not  much  over  five,  Lyon  was  so  set  on 
driving  the  Confederates  away  from  such  an  im- 
portant lead-bearing  region  that  he  risked  an 
attack,  hoping  by  surprise,  skillful  maneuvers, 
and  the  help  of  his  regulars  to  shake  the  enemy's 
hold,  even  if  he  could  not  thoroughly  defeat  him. 


120        CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

Disheartened  by  his  repeated  failure  to  get  rein- 
forcements, and  very  anxious  about  the  fate  of  his 
flanking  column  under  Sigel,  whose  attack  from  the 
rear  was  defeated,  he  expressed  his  forebodings  to 
his  staff.  But  the  light  of  battle  shone  bright  as 
ever  in  his  eyes;  he  was  killed  leading  a  magnificent 
charge;  and  when,  after  his  death,  his  little  army 
drew  off  in  good  order,  the  Confederates,  by  their 
own  account,  "were  glad  to  see  him  go." 

On  the  twentieth  of  September  the  Confederates 
under  Sterling  Price  won  a  barren  victory  by  taking 
Lexington,  Missouri,  where  Colonel  James  Mulli- 
gan made  a  gallant  defense.  That  was  the  last 
Confederate  foothold  on  the  Missouri;  and  it  could 
not  be  maintained. 

In  October,  Anderson,  who  had  never  recovered 
from  the  strain  of  defending  Fort  Sumter,  turned 
over  to  Sherman  the  very  troublesome  Kentucky 
command.  Sherman  pointed  out  to  the  visiting 
Secretary  of  War,  Simon  Cameron,  that  while 
McClellan  had  a  hundred  thousand  men  for  a  front 
of  a  hundred  miles  in  Virginia,  and  Fremont  had 
sixty  thousand  for  about  the  same  distance,  he 
(Sherman)  had  been  given  only  eighteen  thousand 
to  guard  the  link  between  them,  although  this  link 
stretched  out  three  hundred  miles.    Sherman  then 


THE  RIVER  WAR:  1862  121 

asked  for  sixty  thousand  men  at  once;  and  said  two 
hundred  thousand  would  be  needed  later  on. 
"Good  God!"  said  Cameron,  "where  are  they  to 
come  from?"  Come  they  had  to,  as  Sherman  fore- 
saw. Cameron  made  trouble  at  Washington  by 
calling  Sherman's  words  "insane";  and  Sherman's 
"insanity"  became  a  stumbling-block  that  took 
a  long  time  to  remove. 

Grant,  in  command  at  Cairo,  began  his  career 
as  a  general  by  cleverly  forestalling  the  enemy  at 
Paducah,  where  the  Tennessee  flows  into  the  Ohio. 
Then,  on  the  seventh  of  November,  he  closed  the 
first  confused  campaign  on  the  Mississippi  by  at- 
tacking Belmont,  Missouri,  twenty  miles  down- 
stream from  Cairo,  in  order  to  prevent  the  Con- 
federates at  Columbus,  Kentucky,  right  opposite, 
from  sending  reinforcements  to  Sterling  Price  in 
Arkansas.  There  was  a  stiff  fight,  in  which  the 
Union  gunboats  did  good  work.  Grant  handled 
his  soldiers  equally  well;  and  the  Union  objective 
was  fully  attained. 

Halleck,  the  Federal  Commander-in-Chief  for 
the  river  campaign  of  '62,  fixed  his  headquarters 
at  St.  Louis.  From  this  main  base  his  right  wing 
had  rails  as  far  as  Rolla,  whence  the  mail  road  went 


122        CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

on  southwest,  straight  across  Missouri.  At  Le- 
banon, near  the  middle  of  the  State,  General 
Samuel  R.  Curtis  was  concentrating,  before  ad- 
vancing still  farther  southwest  against  the  Con- 
federates whom  he  eventually  fought  at  Pea  Ridge. 
From  St.  Louis  there  was  good  river,  rail,  and  road 
connection  south  to  Halleck's  center  in  the  neigh- 
borhood of  Cairo,  where  General  Ulysses  S.  Grant 
had  his  chief  field  base,  at  the  junction  of  the  Mis- 
sissippi and  Ohio.  A  little  farther  east  Grant  had 
another  excellent  position  at  Paducah,  beside  the 
junction  of  the  Ohio  and  the  Tennessee.  Naval 
forces  were  of  course  indispensable  for  this  amphibi- 
ous campaign;  and  in  Flag-Officer  Andrew  Hull 
Foote  the  Western  Flotilla  had  a  commander  able 
to  cooperate  with  the  best  of  his  military  colleagues. 
Halleck's  left  —  a  semi-independent  command  — 
was  based  on  the  Ohio,  stretched  clear  across  Ken- 
tucky, and  was  commanded  by  a  good  organizer 
and  disciplinarian, General  Don  Carlos  Buell,  whose 
own  position  at  Munfordville  was  not  only  near  the 
middle  of  the  State  but  about  midway  between 
the  important  railway  junctions  of  Louisville 
and  Nashville. 

Henry  W.  Halleck  was  a  middle-aged,  common- 
place, and  very  cautious  general,  who  faithfully 


THE  RIVER  WAR:  1862  123 

plodded  through  the  war  without  defeat  or  vic- 
tory. He  looked  so  long  before  he  leaped  that 
he  never  leaped  at  all  —  not  even  on  retreating 
enemies.  Good  for  the  regular  office-work  rou- 
tine, he  was  like  a  hen  with  ducklings  for  this 
river  war,  in  which  Curtis,  Grant,  Buell,  and  his 
naval  colleague  Foote,  were  all  his  betters  on  the 
fighting  line. 

His  opponent,  Albert  Sidney  Johnston,  was  also 
middle-aged,  being  fifty-nine;  but  quite  fit  for 
active  service.  Johnston  had  had  a  picturesque 
career,  both  in  and  out  of  the  army ;  and  many  on 
both  sides  thought  him  likely  to  prove  the  greatest 
leader  of  the  war.  He  was^  however,  a  less  for- 
midable opponent  than  Northerners  were  apt  to 
think.  He  was  not  a  consummate  genius  like  Lee. 
He  had  inferior  numbers  and  resources;  and  the 
Confederate  Government  interfered  with  him. 
Yet  they  did  have  the  good  sense  to  put  both  sides 
of  the  Mississippi  under  his  unified  command,  in- 
cluding not  only  Kentucky  and  Tennessee,  Mis- 
souri and  Arkansas,  but  the  whole  of  the  crucial 
stretch  from  Vicksburg  to  Port  Hudson.  In  this 
they  were  wiser  than  the  Federal  Government  with 
Halleck's  command,  which  was  neither  so  extensive 
nor  so  completely  unified. 


124        CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

Johnston  took  post  in  his  own  front  line  at 
BowHng  Green,  Kentucky,  not  far  south  of  Buell's 
position  at  Munfordville.  He  was  very  anxious  to 
keep  a  hold  on  Kentucky  and  Missouri,  along  the 
southern  frontiers  of  which  his  forces  were  arrayed. 
His  extreme  right  was  thrown  northward  under 
General  Marshall  to  Prestonburg,  near  the  border 
of  West  Virginia,  in  the  dangerous  neighborhood  of 
many  Union  mountain  folk.  His  southern  outpost 
on  the  right  was  also  in  the  same  kind  of  danger  at 
Cumberland  Gap,  a  strategic  pass  into  the  Alle- 
ghanies  at  a  point  where  Kentucky,  Tennessee,  and 
Virginia  meet.  Halfway  west  from  there  to  Bowl- 
ing Green  the  Confederates  hoped  to  hold  the  Cum- 
berland near  Logan's  Cross  Roads  and  Mill 
Springs.  Westwards  from  Bowling  Green  John- 
ston's line  held  positions  at  Fort  Donelson  on  the 
Cumberland,  Fort  Henry  on  the  Tennessee,  and 
Columbus  on  the  Mississippi.  All  his  Trans-Mis- 
sissippi troops  were  under  the  command  of  the 
enthusiastic  Earl  Van  Dorn,  who  hoped  to  end  his 
spring  campaign  in  triumph  at  St.  Louis. 

The  fighting  began  in  January  at  the  north- 
eastern end  of  the  line,  where  the  Union  Govern- 
ment, chiefly  for  political  reasons,  was  particularly 


THE  RIVER  WAR:  1862  125 

anxious  to  strengthen  the  Unionists  that  lived  all 
down  the  western  Alleghanies  and  so  were  a  thorn 
in  the  side  of  the  solid  South  beyond.  On  the  tenth 
Colonel  James  A.  Garfield,  a  future  President,  at- 
tacked and  defeated  Marshall  near  Prestonburg 
and  occupied  the  line  of  Middle  Creek.  The  Con- 
federates, half  starved,  half  clad,  ill  armed,  slightly 
outnumbered,  and  with  no  advantage  except  their 
position,  fought  well,  but  unavailingly.  Only  some 
three  thousand  men  were  engaged  on  both  sides 
put  together.  Yet  the  result  was  important  be- 
cause it  meant  that  the  Confederates  had  lost  their 
hold  on  the  eastern  end  of  Kentucky,  which  was 
now  in  imrestricted  touch  with  West  Virginia. 

Within  eight  days  a  greater  Union  commander. 
General  G.  H.  Thomas,  emerged  as  the  victor  of  a 
much  bigger  battle  at  Mill  Springs  and  Logan's 
Cross  Roads  on  the  upper  Cumberland,  ninety 
miles  due  east  of  Bowling  Green.  The  victory  was 
complete,  and  Thomas's  name  was  made.  Thomas, 
indeed,  was  known  already  as  a  man  whose  sten- 
torian orders  had  to  be  obeyed;  and  a  clever  young 
Confederate  prisoner  used  this  reputation  as  his 
excuse  for  getting  beaten:  *'We  were  doing  pretty 
good  fighting  till  old  man  Thomas  rose  up  in  his 
stirrups,  and  we  heard  him  holler  out:  'Attention, 


126        CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

Creation!  By  kingdoms,  right  wheel!'  Then  we 
knew  you  had  us." 

There  were  only  about  four  thousand  men  a  side. 
But  in  itself,  and  in  conjunction  with  Garfield's 
little  victory  at  Prestonburg,  the  battle  of  Logan's 
Cross  Roads  was  important  as  raising  the  Federal 
morale,  as  breaking  through  Johnston's  right,  and 
as  opening  the  road  into  eastern  Tennessee.  Short 
supplies  and  almost  impassable  roads,  however, 
prevented  a  further  advance.  One  brigade  was 
therefore  detached  against  Cumberland  Gap,  while 
the  rest  joined  Buell's  command,  which  was  en- 
gaged in  organizing,  drilling  hard,  and  keeping  an 
eye  on  Johnston. 

In  February  the  scene  of  action  changed  to 
Johnston's  left  center,  where  Forts  Donelson  and 
Henry  were  blocking  the  Federal  advance  up  the 
Cumberland  and  the  Tennessee. 

On  the  fourth,  Flag-Officer  Foote,  with  seven 
gunboats,  of  which  four  were  ironclads,  led  the  way 
up  the  Tennessee,  against  Fort  Henry.  That  day 
the  furious  current  was  dashing  driftwood  in  whirl- 
ing masses  against  the  flotilla,  which  had  all  it  could 
do  to  keep  station,  even  with  double  anchors  down 
and  full  steam  up.  Next  morning  a  new  danger 
appeared  in  the  shape  of  what  looked  like  a  school 


THE  RIVER  WAR:  1862  127 

of  dead  porpoises.  These  were  Confederate  torpe- 
does, washed  from  their  moorings.  As  it  was  now 
broad  daylight  they  were  all  successfully  avoided ; 
and  the  crews  felt  as  if  they  had  won  the  first  round. 
The  sixth  of  February  dawned  clear,  with  just 
suflBcient  breeze  to  blow  the  smoke  away.  The 
flotilla  steamed  up  the  swollen  Tennessee  between 
the  silent,  densely  wooded  banks.  Not  a  sound 
was  heard  ashore  until,  just  after  noon,  Fort  Henry 
came  into  view  and  answered  the  flagship's  signal 
shot  with  a  crashing  discharge  of  all  its  big  guns. 
Then  the  fire  waxed  hot  and  heavy  on  both  sides, 
the  gunboats  knocking  geyser-spouts  of  earth 
about  the  fort,  and  the  fort  knocking  gigantic 
splinters  out  of  the  gunboats.  The  Essex  ironclad 
was  doing  very  well  when  a  big  shot  crashed  into 
her  middle  boiler,  which  immediately  burst  like  a 
shell,  scalding  the  nearest  men  to  death,  burning 
others,  and  sending  the  rest  flying  overboard  or  aft. 
With  both  pilots  dead  and  Commander  W.  D. 
Porter  badly  scalded,  the  Essex  was  drifting  out  of 
action  when  the  word  went  round  that  Fort  Henry 
had  surrendered :  and  there,  sure  enough,  were  the 
Confederate  colors  coming  down.  Instantly  Porter 
rallied  for  the  moment,  called  for  three  cheers,  and 
fell  back  exhausted  at  the  third. 


128        CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

The  Confederate  General  Tilghman  surrendered 
to  Foote  with  less  than  a  hundred  men,  all  the  rest, 
over  twenty-five  hundred,  having  started  towards 
Fort  Donelson  before  the  flag  came  down.  The 
Western  Flotilla  had  won  the  day  alone.  But  it 
was  the  fear  of  Grant's  approaching  army  that 
hurried  the  escaping  garrison.  An  hour  after  the 
surrender  Grant  rode  in  and  took  command.  That 
night  victors  and  vanquished  were  dining  together 
when  a  fussy  staff  officer  came  in  to  tell  Grant  that 
he  could  not  find  the  Confederate  reports.  On  this 
Captain  Jesse  Taylor,  the  chief  Confederate  staff 
officer,  replied  that  he  had  destroyed  them.  The 
angry  Federal  then  turned  on  him  with  the  ques- 
tion, "Don't  you  know  you've  laid  yourself  open 
to  punishment.'*"  and  was  storming  along,  when 
Grant  quietly  broke  in:  *'I  should  be  very  much 
surprised  and  mortified  if  one  of  my  subordinate 
officers  should  allow  information  which  he  could 
destroy  to  fall  into  the  hands  of  the  enemy." 

The  surrender  of  Fort  Henry,  coming  so  soon 
after  Prestonburg  and  Logan's  Cross  Roads,  caused 
great  rejoicing  in  the  loyal  North.  The  victory, 
effective  in  itself,  was  completed  by  sending  the 
ironclad  Carondelet  several  miles  upstream  to  de- 
stroy the  Memphis-Ohio    railway    bridge,    thus 


THE  RIVER  WAR:  1862  129 

cutting  the  shortest  line  from  Bowling  Green  to  the 
Mississippi.  But  the  action,  in  which  the  army 
took  no  part,  was  only  a  preliminary  skirmish  com- 
pared with  the  joint  attack  of  the  fleet  and  army 
on  Fort  Donelson.  Fort  Donelson  was  of  great 
strategic  importance.  If  it  held  fast,  and  the  Fed- 
erals were  defeated,  then  Johnston's  line  would 
probably  hold  from  Bowling  Green  to  Columbus, 
and  the  rails,  roads,  and  rivers  would  remain  Con- 
federate in  western  Tennessee.  If,  on  the  other 
hand,  Fort  Donelson  fell,  and  more  especially  if 
its  garrison  surrendered,  then  Johnston's  line  would 
have  to  be  withdrawn  at  once,  lest  the  same  fate 
should  overtake  the  outflanked  remains  of  it.  Both 
sides  understood  this  perfectly  well;  and  all  con- 
cerned looked  anxiously  to  see  how  the  new 
Federal  commander,  General  Grant,  would  face 
the  crisis. 

Ulysses  Simpson  Grant  came  of  sturdy  New 
England  stock,  being  eighth  in  descent  from  Mat- 
thew Grant,  who  landed  in  1630  and  was  Surveyor 
of  Connecticut  for  over  forty  years.  Grant's 
mother  was  one  of  the  Simpsons  who  had  been 
Pennsylvanians  for  several  generations.  His  fam- 
ily was  therefore  as  racy  of  the  North  as  Lee's 


130        CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

was  of  the  South.  His  great-grandfather  and  great- 
granduncle,  Noah  and  Solomon  Grant,  held  British 
commissions  during  the  final  French-and-Indian  or 
Seven  Years'  War  (1756-63)  when  both  were  killed 
in  the  same  campaign.  His  grandfather  Noah 
served  all  through  the  Revolutionary  War.  Fi- 
nancial reverses  and  the  death  of  his  grandmother 
broke  up  the  family;  and  his  father,  Jesse  Grant, 
was  given  the  kindest  of  homes  by  Judge  Tod  of 
Ohio.  Jesse,  being  as  independent  as  he  was  grate- 
ful, turned  his  energies  into  the  first  business  at 
hand,  which  happened  to  be  a  tannery  at  Deerfield 
owned  by  the  father  of  that  wild  enthusiast  John 
Brown.  A  great  reader,  an  able  contributor  to  the 
Western  press,  and  a  most  public-spirited  citizen, 
Jesse  Grant  was  a  good  father  to  his  famous  son, 
who  was  born  on  April  27,  1822,  at  Point  Pleasant, 
Clermont  County,  Ohio.  Young  Grant  hated  the 
tannery,  but  delighted  in  everything  connected 
with  horses;  so  he  looked  after  the  teams.  One  day, 
after  swapping  horses  many  miles  from  home,  he 
found  himself  driving  a  terrified  bolter  that  he 
only  just  managed  to  stop  on  the  edge  of  a  big 
embankment.  His  grown-up  companion,  who 
had  no  stomach  for  any  more,  then  changed  in- 
to a  safe  freight  wagon.     But  Ulysses,  tying  his 


THE  RIVER  WAR:  1862  131 

bandanna  over  the  runaway's  eyes,  stuck  to  the 
post  of  danger. 

After  passing  through  West  Point  without  any 
special  distinction,  except  that  he  came  out  first  in 
horsemanship,  Grant  was  disappointed  at  not  re- 
ceiving the  cavahy  commission  which  he  would 
have  greatly  preferred  to  the  infantry  one  he  was 
given  instead.  Years  later,  when  already  a  rising 
general,  he  vainly  yearned  for  a  cavalry  brigade. 
Otherwise  he  had  curiously  little  taste  for  military 
life ;  though  at  West  Point  he  thought  the  two  finest 
men  in  the  world  were  Captain  C.  F.  Smith,  the 
splendidly  smart  Commandant,  and,  even  more, 
that  magnificently  handsome  giant,  Winfield  Scott, 
who  came  down  to  inspect  the  cadets.  Some  years 
after  having  served  with  credit  all  through  the 
Mexican  War  (when,  like  Lee,  he  learnt  so  much 
about  so  many  future  friends  and  foes)  he  left  the 
army,  not  to  return  till  he  and  Sherman  had  seen 
Blair  and  Lyon  take  Camp  Jackson.  After  wisely 
declining  to  reenter  the  service  under  the  patron- 
age of  General  John  Pope,  who  was  full  of  self-im- 
portance about  his  acquaintance  with  the  Union 
leaders  of  Illinois,  Grant  wrote  to  the  Adjutant- 
General  at  Washington  offering  to  command  a  regi- 
ment.   Like  Sherman,  he  felt  much  more  diffident 


132        CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

about  the  rise  from  ex-captain  of  regulars  to  colo- 
nel commanding  a  battalion  than  some  mere  civil 
ians  felt  about  commanding  brigades  or  directing 
the  strategy  of  armies.  He  has  himself  recorded 
his  horror  of  sole  responsibility  as  he  approached 
what  might  have  been  a  little  battlefield  on  which 
his  own  battalion  would  have  been  pitted  against  a 
Southern  one  commanded  by  a  Colonel  Harris. 
"My  heart  kept  gettmg  higher  and  higher  until  it 
felt  as  though  it  was  in  my  throat.  I  would  have 
given  anything  then  to  have  been  back  in  Illinois; 
but  I  had  not  the  moral  courage  to  halt  and  con- 
sider what  to  do.  When  we  reached  a  point  from 
which  the  valley  below  was  in  full  view  .  .  .  the 
troops  were  gone.  My  heart  resumed  its  place. 
It  occurred  to  me  at  once  that  Harris  had  been  as 
much  afraid  of  me  as  I  had  been  of  him.  This  was 
a  view  of  the  question  I  never  forgot." 

Grant's  latent  powers  developed  rapidly.  Start- 
ing with  a  good  stock  of  miUtary  knowledge  he  soon 
added  to  it  in  every  way  he  could.  He  had  the  in- 
sight of  genius.  Above  all,  he  had  an  indomitable 
will  both  in  carrying  out  practicable  plans  in  spite 
of  every  obstacle  and  in  ruthlessly  dismissing 
every  one  who  failed.  Not  tall,  not  handsome,  in 
no  way  striking  at  first  sight,  he  looked  the  leader 


THE  RIVER  WAR:  1862  133 

born  only  by  reason  of  his  square  jaw,  keen  eye, 
and  determined  expression.  Lincoln's  conclusive 
answer  to  a  deputation  asking  for  Grant's  removal 
simply  was,  "he  fights."  And,  when  mounted  on 
his  splendid  charger  Cincinnati,  Grant  even  looked 
what  he  was  —  "a  first-class  fighting  man." 

Grant  marched  straight  across  the  narrow  neck 
of  land  between  the  forts,  which  were  only  twelve 
miles  apart.  Foote  of  course  had  to  go  round  by 
the  Ohio  —  fifteen  times  as  far.  His  vanguard, 
the  dauntless  Carondelet,  now  commanded  by 
Henry  Walke,  arrived  on  the  twelfth  and  fired  the 
first  shots  at  the  fort,  which  stood  on  a  bluff  more 
than  a  hundred  feet  high  and  mounted  fifteen 
heavy  guns  in  three  tiers  of  fire.  Grant's  infantry 
was  already  in  position  round  the  Confederate 
entrenchments;  and  when  his  soldiers  heard  the 
naval  guns  they  first  gave  three  rousing  cheers  and 
then  began  firing  hard,  lest  the  sailors  should  get 
ahead  of  them  again.  Birge's  sharpshooters,  the 
snipers  of  those  days,  were  particularly  keen. 
They  never  drilled  as  a  battalion,  but  simply  as- 
sembled in  bunches  for  orders,  when  Birge  would 
ask:  "Canteens  full.'^  Biscuits  for  all  day?'* 
After  which  he  would  sing  out:  "All  right,  boys. 


134        CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

hunt  your  holes";  and  off  they  would  go  to  stalk 
the  enemy  with  their  long-range  rifles. 

Early  next  morning  Grant  sent  word  to  Walke 
that  he  was  establishing  the  rest  of  his  batteries 
and  that  he  was  ready  to  take  advantage  of  any 
diversion  which  the  Carondelet  could  make  in  his 
favor.  Walke  then  fired  hard  for  two  hours  under 
cover  of  a  wooded  point.  The  fort  fired  back 
equally  hard;  but  with  little  effect  except  for  one 
big  solid  shot  which  stove  in  a  casemate,  knocked 
down  a  dozen  men,  burst  the  steam  heater,  and 
bounded  about  the  engine  room  "like  a  wild  beast 
pursuing  its  prey."  Forty  minutes  later  the  Caron- 
delet was  again  in  action,  firing  hard  till  dark. 
Late  that  night  Foote  arrived  with  the  rest  of 
the  flotilla. 

The  fourteenth  was  another  naval  day.  Foote's 
flotilla  advanced  gallantly,  the  four  ironclads  lead- 
ing in  line  abreast,  the  two  wooden  gunboats  half 
a  mile  astern.  The  ironclads  closed  in  to  less  than 
a  quarter-mile  and  hung  on  like  bulldogs  till  the 
Confederates  in  the  lowest  battery  were  driven 
from  their  guns.  But  the  plunging  fire  from  the 
big  guns  on  the  bluff  crashed  down  with  ever  in- 
creasing effect.  Davits  were  smashed  like  matches, 
boats  knocked  into  kindling  wood,  armor  dented, 


THE  RIVER  WAR:  1862  135 

started,  ripped,  stripped,  and  sent  splashing  over- 
board as  if  by  strokes  of  lightning.  Before  the 
decks  could  be  re-sanded  there  was  so  much  blood 
on  them  that  the  gun  crews  could  hardly  work  for 
slipping.  Presently  the  Pittsburgh  swung  round, 
ran  foul  of  the  Carondelet,  and  dropped  down- 
stream. The  pilot  of  the  St.  Louis  was  killed,  and 
Foote,  who  stood  beside  him,  wounded.  The 
wheel-ropes  of  the  St.  Louis^  like  those  of  the  Louis- 
ville, were  shot  away.  The  whole  flotilla  then  re- 
tired, still  firing  hard;  and  the  Confederates  wired 
a  victory  to  Richmond. 

Both  sides  now  redoubled  their  efiForts ;  for  Donel- 
son  was  a  great  prize  and  the  forces  engaged  were 
second  only  to  those  at  Bull  Run.  Afloat  and 
ashore,  all  ranks  and  ratings  on  both  sides  together, 
there  were  fifty  thousand  men  present  at  the  in- 
vestment from  first  to  last.  The  Confederates 
began  with  about  twenty  thousand,  Grant  with 
fifteen  thousand.  But  Grant  had  twenty-seven 
thousand  fit  for  duty  at  the  end,  in  spite  of  all  his 
losses.  He  was  fortunate  in  his  chief  staff  oflScer, 
the  devoted  and  capable  John  A.  Rawlins,  after- 
wards a  general  and  Secretary  of  War.  Two  of  his 
divisional  commanders.  Lew  Wallace  and,  still 
more,  C.  F.  Smith,  the  old  Commandant  of  Cadets, 


136        CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

were  also  first-rate.  But  the  third,  Mc demand, 
here  began  to  follow  those  distorting  ideas  which 
led  to  his  dismissal  later  on.  The  three  chief  Con- 
federates ranked  in  reverse  order  of  efficiency: 
Floyd  first  and  worst,  cantankerous  Pillow  next, 
and  Buckner  best  though  last. 

The  Federal  prospect  was  anything  but  bright 
on  the  evening  of  the  fourteenth.  Foote  had  just 
been  repulsed;  while  McClernand  had  fought  a 
silly  little  battle  on  his  own  account  the  day  before, 
to  the  delight  of  the  Confederates  and  the  grievous 
annoyance  of  Grant.  The  fifteenth  dawned  on  a 
scene  of  midwinter  discomfort  in  the  Federal  lines, 
where  most  of  the  rawest  men  had  neither  great- 
coats nor  blankets,  having  thrown  them  away 
during  the  short  march  from  Fort  Henry,  regard- 
less of  the  fact  that  they  would  have  to  bivouac 
at  Donelson.  Thus  it  was  in  no  happy  frame  of 
mind  that  Grant  slithered  across  the  frozen  mud 
to  see  what  Foote  proposed;  and,  when  Foote  ex- 
plained that  the  gunboats  would  take  ten  days  for 
indispensable  repairs,  Grant  resigned  himself  to 
the  very  unwelcome  idea  of  going  through  the 
long-drawn  horrors  of  a  regular  winter  siege. 

But,  to  his  intense  surprise,  the  enemy  saved 
him  the  trouble.    At  first,  when  they  had  a  shght 


THE  RIVER  WAR:  1862  137 

preponderance  of  numbers,  they  stood  fast  and  let 
Grant  invest  them.  Now  that  he  had  the  prepon- 
derance they  tried  to  cut  their  way  out  by  the 
southern  road,  upstream,  where  McClernand's 
division  stood  guard.  As  Grant  came  ashore  from 
his  interview  with  Foote  an  aide  met  him  with  the 
news  that  McClernand  had  been  badly  beaten  and 
that  the  enemy  was  breaking  out.  Grant  set  spurs 
to  his  horse  and  galloped  the  four  muddy  miles  to 
his  left,  where  that  admirable  soldier,  C.  F.  Smith, 
was  as  cool  and  wary  as  ever,  harassing  the  enemy's 
new  rear  by  threatening  an  assault,  but  keeping  his 
division  safe  for  whatever  future  use  Grant  wanted. 
Wallace  had  also  done  the  right  thing,  pressing  the 
enemy  on  his  own  front  and  sending  a  brigade  to 
relieve  the  pressure  on  McClernand.  These  two 
generals  were  in  conversation  during  a  lull  in  the 
battle  when  Grant  rode  up,  calmly  returned  their 
salutes,  attentively  listened  to  their  reports,  and 
then,  instead  of  trying  the  Halleckian  expedient  of 
digging  in  farther  back  before  the  enemy  could 
make  a  second  rush,  quietly  said :  "  Gentlemen,  the 
position  on  the  right  must  be  retaken." 

Grant  knew  that  Floyd  was  no  soldier  and  that 
Pillow  was  a  stumbhng-block .  He  read  the  enemy's 
mind  like  an  open  book  and  made  up  his  own  at 


138        CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

once  by  the  flash  of  intuition  which  told  him  that 
their  men  were  mostly  as  much  demoralized  by 
finding  their  first  attempt  at  escape  more  than  half 
a  failure  as  even  McClernand's  were  by  being 
driven  back.  He  decided  to  use  Smith's  fresh  divi- 
sion for  an  assault  in  rear,  while  McClernand's, 
stiffened  by  Wallace's,  should  re-form  and  hold 
fast.  Before  leaving  the  excited  oflScers  and  men, 
who  were  talking  in  groups  without  thinking  of 
their  exhausted  ammunition,  he  called  out  cheerily : 
"Fill  your  cartridge  boxes  quick,  and  get  into  line. 
The  enemy  is  trying  to  escape  and  he  must  not  be 
permitted  to  do  so."  McClernand's  division,  ex- 
cellent men,  but  not  yet  disciplined  soldiers,  re- 
sponded at  once  to  the  touch  of  a  master  hand;  and 
as  Grant  rode  off  to  Smith's  he  had  the  satisfaction 
of  seeing  the  defenseless  groups  melt,  change,  and 
harden  into  well-armed  lines. 

Smith,  ready  at  all  points,  had  only  to  slip  his 
own  division  from  the  leash.  Buckner,  who  was 
to  have  covered  the  Confederate  escape,  was  also 
ready  with  the  guns  of  Fort  Donelson  and  the  rifles 
of  defenses  that  "looked  too  thick  for  a  rabbit  to 
get  through."  Smith,  knowing  his  unseasoned  men 
would  need  the  example  of  a  commander  they 
could  actually  see,  rode  out  in  front  of  his  center 


THE  RIVER  WAR:  1862  139 

as  if  at  a  formal  review.  *'I  was  nearly  seared  to 
death,"  said  one  of  his  followers,  "but  I  saw  the 
old  man's  white  moustache  over  his  shoulder,  and 
so  I  went  on."  As  the  hne  neared  the  Confederate 
abatis  a  sudden  gust  of  fire  seemed  to  strike  it 
numb.  In  an  instant  Smith  had  his  cap  on  the 
point  of  his  sword.  Then,  rising  in  his  stirrups  to 
his  full  gigantic  height,  he  shouted  in  stentorian 
tones:  "No  flinching  now,  my  lads!  Here  —  this 
way  in!  Come  on!"  In,  through,  and  out  the 
other  side  they  went.  Smith  riding  ahead,  holding 
his  sword  and  cap  aloft,  and  seeming  to  bear  a 
charmed  life  amid  that  hail  of  bullets.  Up  the 
slope  he  rode,  the  Confederates  retiring  before  him, 
till,  unscathed,  he  reached  the  deadly  crest,  where 
the  Union  colors  waved  defiance  and  the  Union 
troops  stood  fast. 

Floyd,  being  under  special  indictment  at  Wash- 
ington for  misconduct  as  Secretary  of  War,  was  so 
anxious  to  escape  that  he  turned  over  the  command 
to  Pillow,  who  declined  it  in  favor  of  Buckner. 
That  night  Floyd  and  Pillow  made  off  with  all  the 
river  steamers;  Forrest's  cavalry  floundered  past 
McClernand's  exposed  flank,  which  rested  on  a 
shallow  backwater;  and  Buckner  was  left  with 
over  twelve  thousand  men  to  make  what  terms  he 


140        CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

could.  Next  morning,  the  sixteenth,  he  wrote  to 
Grant  proposing  the  appointment  of  commissioners 
to  agree  upon  terms  of  surrender.  But  Grant  had 
made  up  his  mind  that  compromise  was  out  of 
place  in  civil  war  and  that  absolute  defeat  or  vic- 
tory were  the  only  alternatives.  So  he  instantly 
wrote  back  the  famous  letter  which  quickly  earned 
him  the  appropriate  nickname  —  suggested  by  his 
own  initials  —  of  Unconditional  Surrender  Grant. 

Hd  Qrs,  Army  in  the  Field 
Camp  near  Donelson  Feb'y  16th  1862 

Gen.  S.  B.  Buckner, 
Confed.  Army. 
Sir  :  Yours  of  this  date  proposing  armistice,  and  ap- 
pointment of  Commissioners  to  settle  terms  of  capit- 
ulation is  just  received.    No  terms  except  an  uncon- 
ditional and  immediate  surrender  can  be  accepted.    I 
propose  to  move  immediately  upon  your  works 
I  am,  Sir,  very  respectfully. 

Your  obt.  sert., 

U.  S.  Grant 
Brig.  Gen. 

Grant  and  Buckner  were  old  army  friends;  so 
their  personal  talk  was  very  pleasant  at  the  little 
tavern  where  Buckner  and  his  staff  had  just  break- 
fasted off  corn  bread  and  coffee,  which  was  all  the 
Confederate  stores  afforded. 


THE  RIVER  WAR:  1862  141 

Donelson  at  once  became,  like  Grant,  a  name  to 
conjure  with.  The  fact  that  the  Union  had  at  last 
won  a  fight  in  which  the  numbers  neared,  and  the 
losses  much  exceeded,  those  at  Bull  Run  itself,  the 
further  fact  that  this  victory  made  a  fatal  breach 
in  the  defiant  Southern  line  beyond  the  Alleghanies, 
and  the  delight  of  discovering  another,  and  this 
time  a  genuine,  hero  in  "Unconditional  Surrender 
Grant, "  all  combined  to  set  the  loyal  North  aflame 
with  satisfaction,  pride,  and  joyful  expectation. 
Great  things  were  expected  in  Virginia,  where  the 
invasion  had  not  yet  begun.  Great  things  were 
expected  in  the  Gulf,  where  Farragut  had  not  yet 
tried  the  Mississippi.  And  great  things  were  ex- 
pected to  result  from  Donelson  itself,  whence  the 
Union  forces  were  to  press  on  south  till  they  met 
other  Union  forces  pressing  north.  The  river 
campaign  was  then  to  end  in  a  blaze  of  glory. 

Donelson  did  have  important  results.  John- 
ston, who  had  already  abandoned  Bowling  Green 
for  Nashville,  had  now  to  abandon  Nashville,  with 
most  of  its  great  and  very  sorely  needed  stores, 
as  well  as  the  rest  of  Tennessee,  and  take  up  a 
new  position  along  the  rails  that  ran  from  Mem- 
phis to  Chattanooga,  whence  they  forked  northeast 
to  Richmond  and  Washington  and  southeast  to 


142        CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

Charleston  and  Savannah.  Columbus  was  also 
abandoned,  and  the  only  points  left  to  the  Con- 
federates anywhere  near  the  old  line  were  Island 
Number  Ten  in  the  Mississippi  and  the  Boston 
Mountains  in  Arkansas. 

But  the  triumphant  Union  advance  from  the 
north  did  not  take  place  in  '62.  Grant  was  for 
pushing  south  as  fast  as  possible  to  attack  the 
Confederates  before  they  had  time  to  defend  their 
great  railway  junction  at  Corinth.  But  Halleck 
was  too  cautious;  and  misunderstandings,  coupled 
with  division  of  command,  did  the  rest.  Halleck 
was  the  senior  general  in  the  West.  But  the  three, 
and  afterwards  four,  departments  into  which  the 
West  was  divided  were  never  properly  brought  un- 
der a  single  command.  Then  telegrams  went  wrong 
at  the  wire-end  advancing  southwardly  from  Cairo, 
the  end  Grant  had  to  use.  A  wire  from  McClel- 
lan  on  the  sixteenth  of  February  was  not  delivered 
till  the  third  of  March.  Next  day  Grant  was 
thunderstruck  at  receiving  this  from  Halleck: 
"Place  C.  F.  Smith  in  command  of  expedition  and 
remain  yourself  at  Fort  Henry.  Why  do  you  not 
obey  my  orders  to  report  strength  and  positions  of 
your  command?"  And  so  it  went  on  till  McClel- 
lan  authorized  Halleck  to  place  Grant  under  arrest 


THE  RIVER  WAR:  1862  143 

for  insubordination.  Then  the  operator  at  the 
wire-end  suddenly  deserted,  taking  a  sheaf  of  dis- 
patches with  him.     He  was  a  clever  Confederate. 

Explanations  followed;  and  on  the  seventeenth 
of  March  Grant  rejoined  his  army,  which  was 
assembling  round  Pittsburg  Landing  on  the  Ten- 
nessee, near  the  future  battlefield  of  Shiloh,  and 
some  twenty  miles  northeast  of  Corinth. 

Meanwhile  Van  Dorn  and  Sterling  Price,  think- 
ing it  was  now  or  never  for  Missouri,  decided  to 
attack  Curtis.  They  had  fifteen  against  ten  thou- 
sand men,  and  hoped  to  crush  Curtis  utterly  by 
catching  him  between  two  fires.  But  on  the  sev- 
enth of  March  the  Federal  left  beat  off  the  flank- 
ing attack  of  McCulloch  and  Mcintosh,  both  of 
whom  were  killed.  The  right,  furiously  assailed 
by  the  Confederate  Missourians  under  Van  Dorn 
and  Price,  fared  badly  and  was  pressed  back.  Yet 
on  the  eighth  Curtis  emerged  victorious  on  the 
hard-fought  field  that  bears  the  double  name  of 
Elkhorn  Tavern  and  Pea  Ridge.  This  battle  in 
the  northwest  corner  of  Arkansas  settled  the  fate 
of  Missouri. 

A  month  later  the  final  attack  was  made  on  Is- 
land Number  Ten.  Foote's  flotilla  had  been  at 
work  there  as  early  as  the  middle  of  March,  when 


144        CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

the  strong  Confederate  batteries  on  the  island  and 
east  shore  bluffs  were  bombarded  by  ironclads  and 
mortar-boats.  Then  the  Union  General  John  Pope 
took  post  at  New  Madrid,  eight  miles  below  the 
island,  on  the  west  shore,  which  the  Confederates 
had  to  evacuate  when  he  cut  their  line  of  communi- 
cations farther  south.  They  now  held  only  the 
island  and  the  east  shore  opposite,  with  no  line  of 
retreat  except  the  Mississippi,  because  the  land 
line  on  the  east  shore  was  blocked  by  swamps  and 
flanked  by  the  Union  armies  in  western  Tennessee. 
On  the  night  of  the  fourth  of  April  the  Carondelet 
started  to  cut  this  last  line  south.  She  was  swathed 
in  hawsers  and  chain  cables.  Her  decks  were 
packed  tight  with  every  sort  of  gear  that  would 
break  the  force  of  plunging  shot;  and  a  big  barge, 
laden  with  coal  and  rammed  hay,  was  lashed  to 
her  port  side  to  protect  her  magazine.  Twenty- 
three  picked  Illinoisian  sharpshooters  went  aboard; 
while  pistols,  muskets,  cutlasses,  boarding-pikes, 
and  hand  grenades  were  placed  ready  for  in- 
stant use.  The  escape-pipe  was  led  aft  into  the 
wheel-house,  so  as  to  deaden  the  noise;  and  hose 
was  attached  to  the  boilers  ready  to  scald  any 
Confederates  that  tried  to  board.  Then,  through 
the  heart  of  a  terrific  thunderstorm,  and  amid  a 


THE  RIVER  WAR:  1862  145 

furious  cannonade,  the  Carondelet  ran  the  des- 
perate gauntlet  at  full  speed  and  arrived  at  New 
Madrid  by  midnight. 

The  Confederates  were  now  cut  off  both  above 
and  below;  for  the  position  of  Island  Number  Ten 
was  at  the  lower  point  of  a  V-shaped  bend  in  the 
Mississippi,  with  Federal  forces  at  the  two  upper 
points.  But  the  Federal  troops  could  not  close  on 
the  Confederates  without  crossing  over  to  the  east 
bank ;  and  their  transports  could  not  run  the  gaunt- 
let like  the  ironclads.  So  the  Engineer  Regiment 
of  the  West  cut  out  a  water  road  connecting  the 
two  upper  points  of  the  V.  This  admirable  feat  of 
emergency  field  engineering  was  effected  by  sawing 
through  three  miles  of  heavy  timber  to  the  nearest 
bayou,  whence  a  channel  was  cleared  down  to  New 
Madrid,  Then  the  transports  went  through  in 
perfect  safety  and  took  Pope's  advanced  guard 
aboard.  The  ironclad  Pittsburg  had  come  down, 
through  another  thunderstorm,  this  same  morning 
of  the  seventh;  and  when  the  island  garrison  saw 
their  position  completely  cut  off  they  surrendered 
to  Foote.  Next  day  Pope's  men  cut  off  the  greater 
part  of  the  Confederates  on  the  mainland.  Thus 
fell  the  last  point  near  Johnston's  original  hne  along 
the  southern  borders  of  Missouri  and  Kentucky. 


146         CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

Just  before  it  fell  Johnston  made  a  desperate 
counter-attack  from  his  new  line  at  Corinth,  in 
northwest  Mississippi,  against  Grant's  encroaching 
force  at  Shiloh,  fifteen  miles  northeast,  on  the 
Tennessee  River. 

Writing  "A.  S.  Johnston,  3d  April,  62,  en  avant** 
on  his  pocket  map  of  Tennessee,  the  Confederate 
leader,  anguished  by  the  bitter  criticism  with 
which  his  unavoidable  retreat  had  been  assailed, 
east  the  die  for  an  immediate  attack  on  Grant 
before  slow  Halleck  reinforced  or  ready  Buell 
joined  him.  Johnston's  lieutenants,  Beauregard 
and  Bragg,  had  obtained  ten  days  for  reorganiza- 
tion; and  their  commands  were  as  ready  as  raw 
forces  could  be  made  in  an  extreme  emergency. 
They  hoped  to  be  joined  by  Van  Dorn,  whose 
beaten  army  was  working  east  from  Pea  Ridge. 
But  on  the  second  they  heard  that  Buell  was  ap- 
proaching Grant  from  Nashville;  and  on  the  third 
Johnston's  advanced  guard  began  to  move  oflF. 
Van  Dorn  arrived  too  late.  ^ 

The  march,  which  it  was  hoped  to  complete  on 
the  fourth,  was  not  completed  till  the  fifth.  The 
roads  were  ankle-deep  in  clinging  mud,  the  coun- 
try densely  wooded  and  full  of  bogs  and  marshes. 
The  forty  thousand  men  were  not  yet  seasoned; 


THE  RIVER  WAR:  1862  147 

and,  though  full  of  enthusiasm,  they  neither  knew 
nor  had  time  to  learn  march  discipline.  Moreover, 
Johnston  allowed  his  own  proper  plan  of  attacking 
in  columns  of  corps  to  be  changed  by  Beauregard 
into  a  three-line  attack,  each  line  being  formed  by 
one  complete  corps.  This  meant  certain  and  per- 
haps disastrous  confusion.  For  in  an  attack  by 
columns  of  corps  the  firing  line  would  always  be 
reinforced  by  successive  lines  of  the  same  corps; 
while  attacking  by  lines  of  corps  meant  that  the 
leading  corps  would  first  be  mixed  up  with  the 
second,  and  then  both  with  the  third. 

In  the  meantime  Grant  was  busier  with  his  own 
pressing  problems  of  organization  for  an  advance 
than  with  any  idea  of  resisting  attack.  He  lacked 
the  prevision  of  Winfield  Scott  and  Lee,  both  of 
whom  expected  from  the  first  that  the  war  would 
last  for  years.  His  own  expectation  up  to  this  had 
been  that  the  South  would  collapse  after  the  first 
smashing  blow,  and  that  its  western  armies  were 
now  about  to  be  dealt  such  a  blow.  He  was  not 
unmindful  of  all  precautions;  for  he  knew  the 
Confederates  were  stirring  on  his  front.  Yet  he 
went  downstream  to  Savannah  without  making 
sure  that  his  army  was  really  safe  at  Shiloh. 

Pittsburg  Landing  was  at  the  base  of  the  Shiloh 


148        CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

position.  But  the  point  at  which,  by  the  original 
orders,  Buell  was  to  join  was  Savannah,  nine  miles 
north  along  the  Tennessee.  So  Grant  had  to  keep 
in  touch  with  both.  He  had  not  ignored  the  ad- 
vantage of  entrenching.  But  the  best  line  for  en- 
trenching was  too  far  from  good  water;  and  he 
thought  he  chose  the  lesser  of  two  evils  when  he 
devoted  the  time  that  might  have  been  used  for 
digging  to  drilling  instead.  His  army  was  raw  as 
an  army ;  many  of  the  men  were  still  rawer  recruits ; 
and,  as  usual,  the  recruiting  authorities  had  sent 
him  several  brand-new  battalions,  which  knew 
nothing  at  all,  instead  of  sending  the  same  men 
as  reinforcements  to  older  battalions  that  could 
"learn  'em  how."  Grant's  total  effectives  at  first 
were  only  thirty-three  thousand.  This  made  the 
odds  five  to  four  in  favor  of  Johnston's  attack.  But 
the  rejoining  of  Lew  Wallace's  division,  the  great 
reinforcement  by  Buell 's  troops,  and  the  two  iron- 
clad gunboats  on  the  river,  raised  Grant's  final 
effective  grand  total  to  sixty  thousand.  The  com- 
bined grand  totals  therefore  reached  a  hundred 
thousand  —  double  the  totals  at  Donelson  and  far 
exceeding  those  at  Bull  Run. 

After  a  horrible  week  of  cold  and  wet  the  sun  set 
clear  and  calm  on  Saturdav,  the  eve  of  battle.    The 


THE  RIVER  WAR:  1862  149 

woods  were  alive  with  forty  thousand  Confederates 
all  ready  for  their  supreme  attack  on  the  thirty- 
three  thousand  Federals  on  their  immediate  four- 
mile  front.  Grant's  front  ran,  facing  south,  be- 
tween Owl  and  Lick  Creeks,  two  tributaries  that 
joined  the  Tennessee  on  either  side  of  Pittsburg 
Landing.  Buell's  advance  division,  under  Nelson, 
was  just  across  the  Tennessee.  But  Grant  was  in 
no  hurry  to  get  it  over.  His  reassuring  wire  that 
night  to  Halleck  said:  "The  main  force  of  the 
enemy  is  at  Corinth.  I  have  scarcely  the  faintest 
idea  of  an  attack  (general  one)  being  made  upon 
us."  But  the  skirmishing  farther  south  on  Friday 
had  warned  Grant,  as  well  as  Sherman  and  the 
vigilant  Prentiss,  that  Johnston  might  be  trying  a 
reconnaissance  in  force  —  the  very  thing  that 
Beauregard  wished  the  Confederates  to  do. 

Long  before  the  beautiful  dawn  of  Sunday,  the 
fateful  sixth  of  April,  Prentiss  had  thrown  out  from 
the  center  a  battalion  which  presently  met  and 
drove  in  the  vanguard  of  the  first  Confederate  line 
of  assault.  The  Confederate  center  soon  came  up, 
overwhelmed  this  advanced  battalion,  and  burst 
like  a  storm  on  the  whole  of  Prentiss's  division. 
Then,  above  the  swelling  roar  of  multitudinous 
musketry,  rose  the  thunder  of  the  first  big  guns. 


150        CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

"Note  the  hour,  please,  gentlemen,"  said  John- 
ston; and  a  member  of  his  staff  wrote  down: 
"5:14  A.M." 

Johnston's  admirable  plan  was,  first,  to  drive 
Grant's  left  clear  of  Lick  Creek,  then  drive  it  clear 
of  Pittsburg  Landing,  where  the  two  Federal  iron- 
clads were  guarding  the  ferry.  This,  combined 
with  a  determined  general  assault  on  the  rest  of 
Grant's  line,  would  huddle  the  retreating  Federals 
into  the  cramped  angle  between  Owl  Creek  and  the 
Tennessee  and  force  them  to  surrender.  But  there 
were  three  great  obstacles  to  this :  Sherman  on  the 
right,  the  "Hornet's  Nest"  in  the  center,  and  the 
gunboats  at  the  Landing.  Worse  still  for  the  Con- 
federates, Buell  was  now  too  close  at  hand.  Three 
days  earlier  Johnston  had  wired  from  Corinth  to 
the  Government  at  Richmond:  "Hope  engage- 
ment before  Buell  can  form  junction."  But  the 
troubles  of  the  march  had  lost  him  one  whole 
priceless  day. 

The  Confederate  attack  was  splendidly  gallant 
and  at  first  pushed  home  regardless  of  loss.  The 
ground  was  confusing  to  both  sides:  a  bewilderment 
of  ups  and  downs,  of  underbrush,  woods,  fields, 
and  clumps  of  trees,  criss-cross  paths,  small  creeks, 
raWnes,  and  swamps,  without  a  single  commanding 


THE  RIVER  WAR:  1862  151 

height  or  any  outstanding  features  except  the  two 
big  creeks,  the  river,  and  the  Pittsburg  Landing. 

At  the  first  signs  of  a  big  battle  Grant  hurried 
to  the  field,  first  sending  a  note  to  Buell,  whom 
he  was  to  have  met  at  Savannah,  then  touching 
at  Crump's  Landing  on  the  way,  to  see  Lew  Wal- 
lace and  make  sure  whether  this,  and  not  the  Pitts- 
burg Landing,  was  the  point  of  attack.  Arrived 
on  the  field  of  Shiloh,  calm  and  determined  as 
ever,  he  was  reassured  by  finding  how  well  Sher- 
man was  holding  his  raw  troops  in  hand  at  the 
extremely  important  point  of  Shiloh  itself,  next  to 
Owl  Creek. 

But  elsewhere  the  prospect  was  not  encouraging, 
though  the  men  got  under  arms  very  fast  and  most 
of  them  fought  very  well.  The  eager  gray  lines 
kept  pressing  on  like  the  rising  tide  of  an  angry  sea, 
dashing  in  fury  against  all  obstructing  fronts  and 
swirling  round  the  disconnecting  flanks.  The  blue 
lines,  for  the  most  part,  resisted  till  the  swift  gray 
tide  threatened  to  cut  them  off.  Half  of  Prentiss's 
remaining  men  were  in  fact  cut  off  that  afternoon 
and  forced  to  surrender  with  their  chief,  whose  con- 
duct, like  their  own,  was  worthy  of  all  praise. 
Back  and  still  back  the  blue  lines  went  before  the 
encroaching  gray,  each  losing  heavily  by  sheer  hard 


152        CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

fighting  at  the  front  and  streams  of  stragglers 
running  towards  the  rear. 

Sherman,  Hke  others,  gave  ground,  but  still  held 
his  men  together,  except  for  the  stragglers  he  could 
not  control.  In  the  center  C.  F.  Smith's  division, 
with  Hurlbut's  in  support,  and  all  that  was  left  of 
Prentiss's,  defended  themselves  so  desperately  that 
their  enemies  called  their  position  the  Hornet's 
Nest.  Here  the  fight  swayed  back  and  forth  for 
hours,  with  ghastly  losses  on  both  sides.  C.  F. 
Smith  himself  was  on  his  deathbed  at  Savannah. 
But  he  heard  the  roar  of  battle.  His  excellent  suc- 
cessor, W.  H.  L.  Wallace,  was  killed;  and  battalions, 
brigades,  and  even  divisions,  soon  became  inex- 
tricably mixed  together.  There  was  now  the  same 
confusion  on  the  Confederate  side,  where  Johnston 
was  wounded  by  a  bullet  from  the  Hornet's  Nest. 
It  was  not  in  itself  a  mortal  wound.  But,  know- 
ing how  vital  this  point  was,  he  went  on  encourag- 
ing his  men  till,  falling  from  the  saddle,  he  was 
carried  back  to  die. 

Grant  still  felt  confident;  though  he  had  seen  the 
worst  in  the  rear  as  well  as  the  best  at  the  front. 
Two  of  his  brand-new  battalions,  the  very  men  who 
afterwards  fought  like  heroes,  when  they  had 
learned  the  soldier's  work,  now  ran  like  hares. 


THE  RIVER  WAR:  1862  153 

"During  the  day,"  says  Grant,  "I  rode  back  as 
far  as  the  river  and  met  General  Buell,  who  had 
just  arrived.  There  probably  were  as  many  as 
four  or  five  thousand  stragglers  lying  under  cov- 
er of  the  river  bluff,  panic-stricken.  As  we  left 
the  boat  Buell's  attention  was  attracted  by  these 
men.  I  saw  him  berating  them  and  trying  to 
shame  them  into  joining  their  regiments.  He  even 
threatened  them  with  shells  from  the  gunboats 
nearby.  But  all  to  no  effect.  Most  of  these  men 
afterward  proved  themselves  as  gallant  as  any 
of  those  who  saved  the  battle  from  which  they 
had  deserted." 

By  half-past  five,  after  twelve  hours'  fighting. 
Grant  at  last  succeeded  in  forming  a  new  and 
shorter  line,  a  mile  behind  that  morning's  front,  but 
without  any  dangerous  gaps.  There  were  three 
reorganized  divisions  —  Sherman's,  McClernand's, 
and  Hurlbut's,  one  fresh  division  under  Nelson, 
and  a  strong  land  battery  of  over  twenty  field  guns 
helping  the  two  ironclad  gunboats  in  the  defense  of 
Pittsburg  Landing.  The  Confederate  effectives, 
reduced  by  heavy  losses  and  by  as  many  stragglers 
as  the  Federals,  were  now  faced  by  five  thousand 
fresh  men  on  guard  at  the  Landing.  Beauregard, 
who  had  succeeded  Johnston,  then  stopped  the 


154        CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

battle  for  the  day,  with  the  idea  of  retiring 
next  morning  to  Corinth.  But,  before  his  orders 
reached  it,  his  battle-worn  right  made  a  desper- 
ate, fruitless,  and  costly  attack  on  the  immensely 
strengthened  Landing. 

That  night  the  rain  came  down  in  torrents; 
and  the  Confederates  sought  shelter  in  the  tents 
the  Federals  had  abandoned.  They  found  little 
rest  there,  being  harassed  all  through  the  bleak 
dark  by  the  big  shells  that  the  gunboats  threw 
among  them. 

At  dawn  Grant,  now  reinforced  by  twenty-five 
thousand  fresh  men  under  Buell  and  Lew  Wallace, 
took  the  offensive.  Beauregard,  hopelessly  out- 
numbered and  without  a  single  fresh  man,  retired 
on  Corinth,  magnificently  covered  by  Bragg's  rear- 
guard, which  held  the  Federals  back  for  hours  near 
the  crucial  point  of  Shiloh  Church, 

Shiloh  was  the  fiercest  battle  ever  fought  in  the 
River  War.  The  losses  were  over  ten  thousand  a 
side  in  killed  and  wounded;  while  a  thousand  Con- 
federates and  three  thousand  Federals  were  cap- 
tured. It  was  a  Confederate  failure;  but  hard- 
ly the  kind  of  victory  the  Federals  needed  just 
then,  before  the  consummate  triumph  of  Farra- 
gut  at  New  Orleans.    It  brought  together  Federal 


THE  RIVER  WAR:  1862  155 

forces  that  the  Confederates  could  not  possibly 
withstand,  even  on  their  new  line  east  from  Mem- 
phis. But  it  did  not  raise  the  Federal,  or  depress 
the  Confederate,  morale. 

Four  days  after  the  battle  Halleck  arrived  at 
Pittsburg  Landing  and  took  command  of  the  com- 
bined armies.  He  was  soon  reinforced  by  Pope; 
whereupon  he  divided  the  whole  into  right  and  left 
wings,  center,  and  reserve,  each  under  its  own  com- 
mander. Grant  was  made  second  in  command  of 
the  whole.  But,  as  Halleck  dealt  directly  with 
his  other  immediate  subordinates.  Grant  simply 
became  the  fifth  wheel  of  the  Halleckian  slow- 
coach, which,  after  twenty  days  of  preparation, 
began,  with  most  elaborate  precautions,  its  crawl 
toward  Corinth. 

Grant's  position  became  so  nearly  unbearable 
that  he  applied  more  than  once  for  transfer  to  some 
other  place.  But  this  was  refused.  So  he  strove 
to  do  his  impossible  duty  till  the  middle  of  July, 
when  his  punishment  for  Shiloh  was  completed  by 
his  promotion  to  command  a  depleted  remnant  of 
Halleck's  Grand  Army.  It  is  not  by  any  means  the 
least  of  Grant's  claims  to  real  greatness  that,  as  a 
leader,  he  was  able  to  survive  his  most  searching 


156        CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

trials :  the  surprise  at  Shiloh,  the  misunderstandings 
and  arrest  that  followed  Shiloh,  the  slur  of  be- 
ing made  a  fifth- wheel  second-in-command,  the  de- 
moralizing strain  of  that  "most  anxious  period  of 
the  war"  when  his  depleted  forces  were  thrown 
back  on  the  defensive,  and  the  eight  discouraging 
months  of  Sisyphean  offensive  which  preceded  his 
triumph  at  Vicksburg.  No  one  who  has  not  been 
in  the  heart  of  things  with  fighting  fleets  or  armies 
can  realize  what  it  means  to  all  ranks  when  there 
is,  or  even  is  supposed  to  be,  "something  wrong" 
with  the  living  pivot  on  which  the  whole  force 
turns.  And  only  those  who  have  been  behind  the 
scenes  of  war's  all-testing  drama  can  understand 
what  it  means  for  even  an  imagined  "failure"  to 
"come  back." 

Corinth  was  of  immense  importance  to  both 
sides,  as  it  commanded  the  rails  not  only  east  and 
west,  from  the  Tennessee  to  Memphis,  but  north 
and  south,  from  the  Ohio  to  New  Orleans  and 
Mobile.  Though  New  Orleans  was  taken  by  Far- 
ragut  on  the  twenty-fifth  of  April,  the  rails  be- 
tween Vicksburg  and  Port  Hudson  remained  in 
Confederate  hands  till  next  year;  while  Mobile 
remained  so  till  the  year  after  that. 

Beauregard  collected  all  the  troops  he  could  at 


THE  RIVER  WAR:  1862  157 

Corinth.  Yet,  even  with  Van  Dorn's  and  other 
reinforcements,  he  had  only  sixtj'^  thousand  effec- 
tives against  Halleck's  double  numbers.  More- 
over, the  loss  of  three  States  and  many  battles  had 
so  shaken  the  Confederate  forces  that  they  stood 
no  chance  whatever  against  Halleck's  double  num- 
bers in  the  open.  All  the  same,  Halleck  burrowed 
slowly  forward  like  a  mole,  entrenching  every  night 
as  if  the  respective  strengths  and  victories  had 
been  reversed. 

After  advancing  nearly  a  mile  a  day  Halleck 
closed  in  on  Corinth.  He  was  so  deeply  entrenched 
that  no  one  could  tell  from  appearances  which  side 
was  besieging  the  other.  Towards  the  end  of  May 
many  Federal  railwaymen  reported  that  empty 
trains  could  be  heard  running  into  Corinth  and  full 
trains  running  out.  But,  as  the  Confederates 
greeted  each  arriving  "empty"  with  tremendous 
cheers,  Halleck  felt  sure  that  Beauregard  was  being 
greatly  reinforced.  The  Confederate  bluff  worked 
to  admiration.  On  the  twenty-sixth  Beauregard 
issued  orders  for  complete  evacuation  on  the 
twenty-ninlh.  On  the  thirtieth  Halleck  drew  up 
his  whole  grand  army  ready  for  a  desperate  de- 
fense against  an  enemy  that  had  already  gone  a 
full  day's  march  away. 


158        CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

In  the  meantime  the  Federal  flotilla  had  been 
fighting  its  way  down  the  Mississippi,  under  (the 
invalided)  Foote's  very  capable  successor,  Flag- 
Officer  Charles  Henry  Davis.  The  Confederates 
had  very  few  naval  men  on  the  river,  but  many  of 
their  Mississippi  skippers  were  game  to  the  death. 
They  rammed  Federal  vessels  on  the  tenth  of 
May  at  Fort  Pillow,  eighty  miles  above  Memphis. 
Eight  of  their  fighting  craft  were  strongly  built  and 
heavily  armored,  though  very  deficient  in  speed. 
The  Federal  flotilla  was  very  well  manned  by  first- 
class  naval  ratings,  and  was  reinforced  early  in 
June  by  seven  fast  new  rams,  commanded  by 
their  designer.  Colonel  Charles  Ellet,  a  famous 
civil  engineer. 

At  sunrise  on  the  lovely  sixth  of  June  the  Federal 
flotilla,  having  overcome  the  Confederate  posts 
farther  north  and  being  joined  by  Ellet's  rams,  lay 
near  Memphis.  The  Confederates  came  upstream 
to  the  attack,  expecting  to  ram  the  gunboats  in  the 
stern  as  they  had  at  Fort  Pillow.  But  Ellet  sud- 
denly darted  down  on  the  eight  Confederate  iron- 
clads, caught  one  of  them  on  the  broadside,  sank 
her,  and  disabled  two  others.  The  action  then 
became  general.  The  overmatched  Confederates 
kept  up  a  losing  battle  for  more  than  an  hour,  in 


THE  RIVER  WAR:  1862  159 

full  view  of  many  thousands  of  ardent  Southerners 
ashore.  The  scene,  at  its  height,  was  appalling. 
The  smoke,  belching  black  from  the  funnels  and 
white  from  the  guns,  made  a  suffocating  pall  over- 
head; while  the  dark,  squat,  hideous  ironclad  hulls 
seemed  to  have  risen  from  a  submarine  inferno  to 
stab  each  other  with  livid  tongues  of  flame  —  so 
deadly  close  the  two  flotillas  fought.  When  the 
awful  hour  was  over  the  Confederates  were  not 
only  defeated  but  destroyed;  and  a  wail  went  up 
from  the  thousands  of  their  anguished  friends,  as 
if  the  very  shores  were  mourning. 

For  the  next  month  Grant  held  the  command  at 
Memphis.  Then,  on  the  eleventh  of  July,  Halleck 
was  recalled  to  Washington  as  General-in-Chief  of 
the  whole  army;  while  Pope  was  transferred  to 
Virginia.  The  Federal  invasion  of  Virginia  under 
that  "Young  Napoleon,"  McClellan,  had  not  been 
a  success  against  Lee  and  Stonewall  Jackson.  Nor 
did  it  improve  with  Pope  at  the  front  and  Halleck 
in  the  rear,  as  we  shall  presently  see;  though  Hal- 
leck had  declared  that  Pope's  operations  at  Island 
Number  Ten  were  destined  to  immortal  fame,  and 
Pope  himself  admitted  his  own  greatness  in  sundry 
proclamations  to  the  world. 


160        CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

The  campaign  now  entered  its  second  phase. 
The  Virginian  wing  (of  the  whole  front  reaching 
from  the  Mississippi  to  the  sea)  was  checked  this 
summer;  and  was  to  remain  more  or  less  checked 
for  many  a  long  day.  The  river  wing,  under  the 
general  direction  of  Halleck,  had  also  reached  its 
limit  for  '62  about  the  same  time,  after  having  con- 
quered Kentucky  and  western  Tennessee  as  well  as 
the  Mississippi  down  to  Memphis. 

This  river  wing  was  now^  depleted  of  some  ex- 
cellent troops  and  again  divided  into  quite  separate 
commands.  Buell  commanded  the  Army  of  the 
Ohio.  Grant  commanded  his  own  Army  of  the 
Tennessee  and  Rosecrans's  Army  of  the  Mississippi. 
Buell's  scene  of  action  lay  between  the  tribu- 
tary streams  —  Ohio,  Cumberland,  and  Tennes- 
see —  with  Chattanooga  as  his  ultimate  objec- 
tive. Grant's  scene  of  action  lay  along  the  south- 
ward rails  and  Mississippi,  with  Vicksburg  as  his 
ultimate  objective. 

The  Confederates  were  of  course  set  on  recover- 
ing complete  control  of  the  line  of  Southern  rails 
that  made  direct  connections  between  the  Mis- 
sissippi Valley  and  the  sea:  crossing  the  western 
tributaries  of  the  St.  Francis  and  White  Rivers; 
then  running  east  from  Memphis,  through  Grand 


«. 


.imValMcCMIan 

.  Grant  and  nrer  fleets 

Buell  to  aid  Grant 


200  M 

Lee 


_Bueir against  Bragg       Bragg 

..Jfosecrans  Bragg  against  ffosecrans 


THE  RIVER  WAR:  1862  161 

Junction,  Corinth,  and  luka,  to  Chattanooga; 
thence  forking  off  northeast,  through  Knoxville,  to 
Washington,  Richmond,  and  Norfolk;  and  south- 
east to  Charleston  and  Savannah.  Confederate  at- 
tention had  originally  been  fixed  on  Corinth  and 
Chattanooga.  But  General  O.  M.  Mitchel's  abor- 
tive raid,  just  after  Shiloh,  had  also  drawn  it  to 
the  part  between.  The  Federals  therefore  found 
their  enemy  alert  at  every  point. 

Braxton  Bragg,  Beauregard's  successor  and 
Buell's  opponent,  basing  himself  on  Chattanooga, 
tried  to  drive  his  line  of  Confederate  reconquest 
through  the  heart  of  Tennessee  and  thence  through 
mid-Kentucky,  with  the  Ohio  as  his  ultimate  ob- 
jective. His  colleagues  near  the  Mississippi,  Van 
Dorn  and  Sterling  Price,  meanwhile  tried  to  effect 
the  reconquest  of  the  Memphis-Corinth  rails  that 
Grant  and  Rosecrans  were  holding. 

All  main  offensives,  on  both  sides,  ultimately 
failed  in  this  latter  half  of  the  river  campaign  of 
'62.  So  nothing  but  the  bare  fact  that  they  were 
attempted  needs  any  notice  here. 

In  August,  about  the  time  that  Lee  and  Jackson 
were  maneuvering  in  Virginia  to  bring  on  the 
Second  Bull  Run,  Price  and  Bragg  began  their 
respective   advances   against    Grant   and    Buell. 


162        CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

Buell  was  at  Murfreesboro,  defending  Nashville. 
Bragg,  screened  by  the  hills  of  eastern  Tennessee, 
made  for  the  Ohio  at  Louisville  and  Cincinnati. 
Pivoting  on  his  left  he  wheeled  his  whole  army 
round  and  raced  for  Louisville.  Buell  enjoyed  the 
advantage  of  rails  over  roads  and  of  interior  lines 
as  well.  But  Bragg  had  stolen  several  marches  on 
him  at  the  start  and  he  only  won  by  a  head. 

The  Union  Government,  now  thoroughly  alarmed, 
sent  Thomas  to  supersede  Buell.  But  Thomas  de- 
clined to  take  over  the  command,  and  on  the 
eighth  of  October  Buell  fought  Bragg  at  Perry- 
ville.  There  was  no  tactical  defeat  or  victory;  but 
Bragg  retired  on  Chattanooga.  The  Government 
now  urged  Buell  to  enter  east  Tennessee.  He 
protested  that  lack  of  transport  and  supplies  made 
such  a  move  impossible.  William  S.  Rosecrans 
then  replaced  him.  Buell  was  never  employed 
again.  He  certainly  failed  fully  to  appreciate  the 
legitimate  bearing  of  statesmanship  on  strategy; 
but,  for  all  that,  he  was  an  excellent  organizer  and 
a  good  commander. 

In  the  meantime  Grant  had  been  experiencing 
his  "most  anxious  period  of  the  war."  During 
this  anxious  period,  which  lasted  from  July  to  Oc- 
tober, Rosecrans  defeated  Price  at  luka.     This 


THE  RIVER  WAR:  1862  163 

happened  on  the  nineteenth  of  September.  Van 
Dorn  then  joined  Price  and  returned  to  the  at- 
tack but  was  defeated  by  Rosecrans  at  Corinth  on 
the  fourth  of  October.  The  Confederates,  who 
had  come  near  victory  on  the  third,  retired  in 
safety,  because  Grant  still  lacked  the  means  of 
resuming  the  offensive. 

As  soon  as  he  had  the  means  Grant  marched  his 
army  south  for  Vicksburg.  There  were  three  con- 
verging forces:  Grant's  from  Grand  Junction, 
Sherman's  from  Memphis,  and  a  smaller  one  from 
Helena  in  Arkansas.  But  the  Confederate  General, 
J.  C.  Pemberton,  who  had  replaced  Van  Dorn, 
escaped  the  trap  they  tried  to  set  for  him.  He  was 
strongly  entrenched  on  the  south  side  of  the  Talla- 
hatchie, north  of  Oxford,  on  the  Mississippi  Cen- 
tral rails.  While  Grant  and  Sherman  converged 
on  his  front,  the  force  from  Helena  rounded  his 
rear  and  cut  the  rails.  But  the  damage  was  quickly 
repaired;  and  Pemberton  retired  south  toward 
Vicksburg  before  Grant  and  Sherman  could  close 
and  make  him  fight. 

Then  Grant  tried  again.  This  time  Sherman 
advanced  on  board  of  Mississippi  steamers,  with 
the  idea  of  meeting  the  Union  expedition  coming 
up  from  New  Orleans.    But  Van  Dorn  cut  Grant's 


164        CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

long  line  of  land  communications  at  Holly  Springs, 
forcing  Grant  back  for  supplies  and  leaving  Sher- 
man, who  had  made  his  way  up  the  Yazoo,  com- 
pletely isolated.  Grant  fared  well  enough,  so  far 
as  food  was  concerned;  for  he  found  such  abun- 
dant supplies  that  he  at  once  perceived  the  pos- 
sibility of  living  on  the  country  without  troubling 
about  a  northern  base.  He  spent  Cliristmas  and 
New  Year  at  Holly  Springs,  and  then  moved  back 
to  Memphis. 

In  the  meantime  Sherman's  separated  force  had 
come  to  grief.  On  the  twenty-ninth  of  December 
its  attempt  to  carry  the  Chickasaw  Bluffs,  just 
north  of  Vicksburg,  was  completely  frustrated  by 
Pemberton;  for  Sherman  could  not  deploy  into 
line  on  the  few  causeways  that  stood  above  the 
flooded  ground. 

On  the  eleventh  of  January  this  first  campaign 
along  the  Mississippi  was  ended  by  the  capture  of 
Arkansas  Post.  McClernand  was  the  senior  there. 
But  Sherman  did  the  work  ashore  as  D.  D.  Porter 
did  afloat. 

Meanwhile  Bragg  had  brought  the  campaign  to 
a  close  among  the  eastern  tributaries  by  a  daring, 
though  abortive,  march  on  Nashville.  Rosecrans, 
now  commanding  the  army  of  the  Cumberland, 


THE  RIVER  WAR:  1862  165 

stopped  and  defeated  him  at  Stone's  River  on  New 
Year's  Eve. 

The  "War  in  the  West,"  that  is,  in  those  parts 
of  the  Southwest  which  lay  beyond  the  navigable 
tributaries  of  the  Mississippi  system,  was  even 
more  futile  at  the  time  and  absolutely  null  in  the 
end.  Its  scene  of  action,  which  practically  con- 
sisted of  inland  Texas,  New  Mexico,  and  Arizona, 
was  not  in  itself  important  enough  to  be  a  great 
determining  factor  in  the  actual  clash  of  arms. 
But  Texas  supplied  many  good  men  to  the  South- 
ern ranks;  and  the  Southern  commissariat  missed 
the  Texan  cattle  after  the  fall  of  Vieksburg  in  '63. 
New  Mexico  might  also  have  been  a  good  deal 
more  important  than  it  actually  was  if  it  could 
have  been  made  the  base  of  a  real,  instead  of  an 
abortive,  invasion  of  California,  the  El  Dorado  of 
Confederate  finance. 

We  have  already  seen  what  happened  on  Febru- 
ary 15,  1861,  when  General  Twiggs  handed  over  to 
the  State  authorities  all  the  army  posts  in  Texas. 
On  the  first  of  the  following  August  Captain  John 
R.  Baylor,  who  had  been  forming  a  little  Con- 
federate army  under  pretext  of  a  big  buffalo  hunt, 
proclaimed    himself    Governor    of    New    Mexico 


166        CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

(south  of  34°)  and  established  his  capital  at  Mesilla. 
In  the  meantime  the  Confederate  Government 
itself  had  appointed  General  H.  H.  Sibley  to  the 
command  of  a  brigade  for  the  conquest  of  all  New 
Mexico.  Not  ten  thousand  men  were  engaged  in 
this  campaign,  Federals  and  Confederates,  whites 
and  Indians,  all  together ;  but  a  decisive  Confeder- 
ate success  might  have  been  pregnant  of  future 
victories  farther  west.  Some  Indians  fought  on 
one  side,  some  on  the  other ;  and  some  of  the  wilder 
tribes,  delighted  to  see  the  encroaching  whites  at 
loggerheads,  gave  trouble  to  both. 

On  February  21,  1862,  Sibley  defeated  Colonel 
E.  R.  S.  Canby  at  Valverde  near  Fort  Craig.  But 
his  further  advance  was  hindered  by  the  barren- 
ness of  the  country,  by  the  complete  destruction 
of  all  Union  stores  likely  to  fall  into  his  hands,  and 
by  the  fact  that  he  was  between  two  Federal  forts 
when  the  battle  ended.  On  the  twenty-eighth  of 
March  there  was  a  desperate  fight  in  Apache 
Canon.  Both  sides  claimed  the  victory.  But  the 
Confederates  lost  jnore  men  as  well  as  the  whole 
of  their  supply  and  ammunition  train.  After  this 
Sibley  began  a  retreat  which  ended  in  May  at  San 
Antonio.  His  route  was  marked  by  bleaching 
skeletons  for  many  a  long  day;  and  from  this  time 


THE  RIVER  WAR:  1862  167 

forward  the  conquest  of  California  became  nothing 
but  a  dream. 


The  "War  in  the  West"  was  a  mere  twig  on  the 
Trans-Mississippi  branch;  and  when  the  fall  of 
Vicksburg  severed  the  branch  from  the  tree  the 
twig  simply  withered  away. 

The  sword  that  ultimately  severed  branch  and 
twig  was  firmly  held  by  Union  hands  before  the 
year  was  out;  and  this  notwithstanding  all  the 
Union  failures  in  the  last  six  months.  Grant  and 
Porter  from  above,  Banks  and  Farragut  from 
below,  had  already  massed  forces  strong  enough  to 
make  the  Mississippi  a  Union  river  from  source  to 
sea,  in  spite  of  all  Confederates  from  Vicksburg 
to  Port  Hudson. 


CHAPTER  V 

LINCOLN:    WAR   STATESMAN 

Lincoln  was  one  of  those  men  who  require  some 
mighty  crisis  to  call  their  genius  forth.  Though 
more  successful  than  Grant  in  ordinary  life,  he  was 
never  regarded  as  a  national  figure  in  law  or  poli- 
tics till  he  had  passed  his  fiftieth  year.  He  had  no 
advantages  of  birth;  though  he  came  of  a  sturdy 
old  English  stock  that  emigrated  from  Norfolk  to 
Massachusetts  in  the  seventeenth  century,  and 
though  his  mother  seems  to  have  been,  both  in- 
tellectually and  otherwise,  above  the  general  run 
of  the  Kentuckians  among  whom  he  was  born  in 
1809.  His  educational  advantages  were  still  less. 
Yet  he  soon  found  his  true  affinities  in  books,  as 
afterwards  in  life,  not  among  the  clever,  smart,  or 
sentimental,  but  among  the  simple  and  the  great. 
He  read  and  reread  Shakespeare  and  the  Bible,  not 
because  they  were  the  merely  proper  things  to  read 
but  because  his  spirit  was  akin  to  theirs.     This 

168 


LINCOLN:  WAR  STATESMAN  169 

meant  that  he  never  was  a  bookworm.  Words  were 
things  of  hfe  to  him;  and,  for  that  reason,  his  own 
words  Hve. 

He  had  no  artificial  graces  to  soften  the  uncouth 
appearance  of  his  huge,  gaunt  six-foot-four  of 
powerful  bone  and  muscle.  But  he  had  the  native 
dignity  of  straightforward  manhood;  and,  though 
a  champion  competitor  in  feats  of  strength,  his 
opinion  was  always  sought  as  that  of  an  impar- 
tial umpire,  even  in  cases  affecting  himself.  He 
"  played  the  game  "  in  his  frontier  home  as  he  after- 
wards played  the  greater  game  of  life-or-death  at 
Washington.  His  rough-hewn,  strong-featured 
face,  shaped  by  his  kindly  humor  to  the  finer  ends 
of  power,  was  lit  by  a  steady  gaze  that  saw  yet 
looked  beyond,  till  the  immediate  parts  of  the  sub- 
ject appeared  in  due  relation  to  the  whole.  Like 
many  another  man  who  sees  farther  and  feels  more 
deeply  than  the  rest,  and  who  has  the  saving  grace 
of  humor,  he  knew  what  yearning  melancholy  was; 
yet  kept  the  springs  of  action  tense  and  strong. 
Firm  as  a  rock  on  essentials  he  was  extremely  toler- 
ant about  all  minor  differences.  His  policy  was  to 
live  and  let  live  whenever  that  was  possible.  The 
preservation  of  the  Union  was  his  master-passion, 
and  he  was  ready  for  any  honorable  compromise 


170        CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

that  left  the  Union  safe.  Himself  a  teetotaller,  he 
silenced  a  temperance  delegation  whose  members 
were  accusing  Grant  of  drunkenness  by  saying 
he  should  like  to  send  some  of  his  other  generals 
a  keg  of  the  same  whisky  if  it  would  only  make 
them  fight. 

When  he  took  arms  against  the  sea  of  troubles 
that  awaited  him  at  Washington  he  had  dire 
need  of  all  his  calm  tolerance  and  strength.  To 
add  to  his  burdens,  he  was  beset  by  far  more 
than  the  usual  horde  of  office-seekers.  These  men 
were  doubly  ravenous  because  their  party  was 
so  new  to  power.  They  were  peculiarly  hard  to 
place  with  due  regard  for  all  the  elements  within 
the  coalition.  And  each  appointment  needed  most 
discriminating  care,  lest  a  traitor  to  the  Union 
might  creep  in.  While  the  guns  were  thundering 
against  Fort  Sumter,  and  afterwards,  when  the 
Union  Government  was  marooned  in  Washington 
itself,  the  vestibules,  stairways,  ante-rooms,  and 
offices  were  clogged  with  eager  applicants  for  every 
kind  of  civil  service  job.  And  then,  when  this  vast 
human  flood  subsided,  the  "interviewing"  stream 
began  to  flow  and  went  on  swelling  to  the  bitter 
end.  These  war-time  interviewers  claimed  most 
of  Lincoln's  personal  attention  just  when  he  had 


LINCOLN:  WAR  STATESMAN  171 

the  least  to  spare.  But  he  would  deny  no  one  the 
chance  of  receiving  presidential  aid  or  comfort 
and  he  gladly  suffered  many  fools  for  the  chance  of 
reheving  the  sad  or  serious  others.  Add  to  all  this 
the  ceaseless  work  of  helping  to  form  public  opin- 
ion, of  counteracting  enemy  propaganda,  of  shaping 
Union  policy  under  ever-changing  circumstances, 
of  carrying  it  out  by  coalition  means,  and  of  ex- 
ercising civil  control  over  such  vast  armed  forces 
as  no  American  had  hitherto  imagined :  add  these 
extra  burdens,  and  we  can  begin  to  realize  what 
Lincoln  had  to  do  as  the  chief  war  statesman  of 
the  North. 

A  sound  public  opinion  is  the  best  embattlement 
of  any  home  front.  So  Lincoln  set  out  to  help  in 
forming  it.  War  on  a  national  scale  was  something 
entirely  new  to  both  sides,  and  especially  unwel- 
come to  many  people  in  the  North,  though  the 
really  loyal  North  was  up  at  Lincoln's  call.  Then 
came  Bull  Run ;  and  Lincoln's  renewed  determina- 
tion, so  well  expressed  in  Whitman's  words:  "The 
President,  recovering  himself,  begins  that  very 
night  —  sternly,  rapidly  sets  about  the  task  of  re- 
organizing his  forces,  and  placing  himself  in  posi- 
tions for  future  and  surer  work.  If  there  was  noth- 
ing else  of  Abraham  Lincoln  for  history  to  stamp 


172        CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

him  with,  it  is  enough  to  send  him  with  his  wreath 
to  the  memory  of  all  future  time,  that  he  endured 
that  hour,  that  day,  bitterer  than  gall  —  indeed  a 
crucifixion  day  —  that  it  did  not  conquer  him  — 
that  he  unflinchingly  stemmed  it,  and  resolved  to 
lift  himself  and  the  Union  out  of  it." 

Bull  Run  was  only  the  beginning  of  troubles. 
There  were  many  more  rocks  ahead  in  the  stormy 
sea  of  public  opinion.  The  peace  party  was  always 
ready  to  lure  the  ship  of  state  out  of  its  true  course 
by  using  false  lights,  even  when  certain  to  bring 
about  a  universal  wreck  in  which  the  "pacifists" 
would  suffer  with  the  rest.  But  dissensions  within 
the  war  party  were  worse,  especially  when  caused 
by  action  in  the  field.  Fremont's  dismissal  in 
November,  '61,  caused  great  dissatisfaction  among 
three  kinds  of  people:  those  who  thought  him  a 
great  general  because  he  knew  how  to  pose  as  one 
and  really  had  some  streaks  of  great  abihty,  those 
who  were  fattening  on  the  army  contracts  he  let 
out  with  such  a  lavish  hand,  and  those  who  hailed 
him  as  the  liberator  of  the  slaves  because  he  went 
unwarrantably  far  beyond  what  was  then  politic- 
ally wise  or  even  possible.  He  was  the  first  Union- 
ist commander  to  enter  the  Northern  Cave  of 
Adullam,  already  infested  with  Copperhead  snakes. 


LINCOLN:  WAR  STATESMAN  173 

There  he  was  joined  by  McClellan  exactly  a  year 
later;  and  there  the  peace-at-current-prices  party 
contmued  to  nurse  and  cry  their  grievances  till  the 
war  was  over.  McClellan's  dismissal  was  a  matter 
of  dire  necessity  because  victory  was  impossible 
under  his  command.  But  he  was  a  dangerous  re- 
inforcement to  the  Adullamites;  for  many  of  the 
loyal  pubUc  had  been  fooled  by  his  proclamations, 
the  press  had  written  him  up  to  the  skies  as  the 
Young  Napoleon,  and  the  great  mass  of  the  rank 
and  file  still  believed  in  him.  He  took  the  kindly 
interest  in  camp  comforts  that  goes  to  the  soldier's 
heart;  and  he  really  did  know  how  to  organize. 
Add  his  power  of  passing  off  tinsel  promises  for 
golden  deeds,  and  it  can  be  well  understood  how 
great  was  the  danger  of  dismissing  him  before  his 
defects  had  become  so  apparent  to  the  mass  of 
people  as  to  have  turned  opinion  decisively  against 
him.  We  shall  presently  meet  him  in  his  relation 
to  Lincoln  during  the  Virginian  campaign,  and 
later  on  in  his  relation  to  Lee.  Here  we  may  leave 
him  with  the  reminder  that  he  was  the  Democratic 
candidate  for  President  in  '64,  that  he  was  still  a 
mortal  danger  to  the  Union,  even  though  he  had  re- 
jected the  actual  wording  of  his  party's  peace  plank. 
The  turn  of  the  tide  at  the  fighting  front  came 


174        CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

in  '63;  but  not  at  the  home  front,  where  pubhc 
opinion  of  the  most  vocal  kind  was  stirred  to  its 
dregs  by  the  enforcement  of  the  draft.  The  dime 
song  books  of  the  Copperhead  parts  of  New  York 
expressed  in  rude  rhymes  very  much  the  same  sort 
of  apprehension  that  was  voiced  by  the  official  op- 
position in  the  Presidential  campaign  of  '64. 

Abram  Lincoln,  what  yer  'bout? 
Stop  this  war,  for  it's  played  out. 

Another  rhyme,  called  "The  Beauties  of  Conscrip- 
tion," was  a  more  decorous  expression  of  such 
public  opinion. 

And  this,  the  "  People's  Sovereignty, " 
Before  a  despot  humbled! 

Well  have  they  cashed  old  Lincoln's  drafts, 
Hurrah  for  the  Conscription ! 

Is  not  this  war  —  this  Murder  —  for 
The  negro,  nolens  volens  ? 

So,  carrying  out  their  ideas  to  the  same  sort  of 
logical  conclusion,  the  New  York  mob  of  '63  not 
only  burnt  every  recruiting  office  they  found  un- 
defended but  burnt  the  negro  orphan  asylum  and 
killed  all  the  negroes  they  could  lay  their  hands  on. 


LINCOLN:  WAR  STATESMAN  175 

Public  opinion  did  veer  round  a  little  with  the 
rising  tide  of  victory  in  the  winter  of  '63  and  '64. 
But,  incredible  as  it  may  seem  to  those  who  think 
the  home  front  must  always  reflect  the  fighting 
front,  the  nadir  of  public  opinion  in  the  North  was 
reached  in  the  summer  of  '64,  when  every  expert 
knew  that  the  resources  of  the  South  were  nearing 
exhaustion  and  that  the  forces  of  the  North  could 
certainly  wear  out  Lee's  dwindling  army  even  if 
they  could  not  beat  it.  The  trumpet  gave  no  un- 
certain sound  from  Lincoln's  lips.  "In  this  pur- 
pose to  save  the  country  and  its  liberties  no  class 
of  people  seem  so  nearly  unanimous  as  the  soldiers 
in  the  field  and  the  sailors  afloat.  Do  they  not 
have  the  hardest  of  it?  Who  should  quail  while 
they  do  not.^^"  But  the  mere  excellence  of  a  vast 
fighting  front  means  a  certain  loss  of  the  nobler 
qualities  in  the  home  front,  from  which  so  many 
of  the  staunchest  are  withdrawn.  And  then  war- 
weariness  breeds  doubts,  doubts  breed  fears,  and 
fears  breed  the  spirit  of  surrender. 

There  seemed  to  be  more  Copperheads  in  the 
conglomerate  opposition  than  Unionists  ready  to 
withstand  them.  The  sinister  figure  of  Vallandig- 
ham  loomed  large  in  Ohio,  where  he  openly  de- 
nounced the  war  in  such  disloyal  terms  that  the 


176        CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

military  authorities  arrested  him.  An  opposition 
committee,  backed  by  the  snakes  in  the  grass  of 
the  secret  societies,  at  once  wrote  to  Lincoln  de- 
manding release.  Lincoln  thereupon  offered  release 
if  the  committee  would  sign  a  declaration  that, 
since  rebellion  existed,  and  since  the  armed  forces 
of  the  United  States  were  the  constitutional  means 
of  suppressing  rebellion,  each  member  of  the  com- 
mittee would  support  the  war  till  rebellion  was  put 
down.  The  committee  refused  to  sign.  More 
people  then  began  to  see  the  self-contradictions 
of  the  opposition,  and  most  of  those  "plain  peo- 
ple" to  whom  Lincoln  consciously  appealed  were 
touched  to  the  heart  by  his  pathetic  question: 
"Must  I  shoot  the  simple-minded  soldier  boy  who 
deserts,  while  I  must  not  touch  a  hair  of  the  wily 
agitator  who  induces  him  to  desert.'^" 

But  there  was  still  defection  on  the  Union  side, 
and  among  many  "plain  people"  too;  for  Horace 
Greeley,  the  best-known  Union  editor,  lost  his  nerve 
and  ran  away.  And  Greeley  was  not  the  only  Union 
journalist  who  helped,  sometimes  unwittingly,  to 
pervert  public  opinion.  The  "writing  up"  of  Mc- 
Clellan  for  what  he  was  not,  though  rather  hyster- 
ical, was  at  least  well  meant.  But  the  reporters 
who  "wrote  down"  General  Cox,  because  he  would 


LINCOLN:  WAR  STATESMAN  177 

not  make  them  members  of  his  staff  in  West  Vir- 
ginia, disgraced  their  profession.  The  Hes  about 
Sherman's  "insanity"  and  Grant's  "intoxication" 
were  shamelessly  excused  on  the  plea  that  they 
made  "good  stories."  Sherman's  insanity,  as  we 
have  seen  already,  existed  only  in  the  disordered 
imagination  of  blabbing  old  Simon  Cameron. 
Grant,  at  the  time  these  stories  were  published, 
was  strictly  temperate. 

Amid  all  the  hindrances  —  and  encouragements, 
for  the  Union  press  generally  did  noble  service  in 
the  Union  cause  —  of  an  uncensored  press,  and  all 
the  complexities  of  public  opinion,  Lincoln  kept  his 
head  and  heart  set  firmly  on  the  one  supreme  ob- 
jective of  the  Union.  He  foresaw  from  the  first 
that  if  all  the  States  came  through  the  war  United, 
then  all  the  reforms  for  which  the  war  was  fought 
would  follow;  but  that  if  any  particular  reform  was 
itself  made  the  supreme  objective,  then  it,  and  with 
it  all  the  other  reforms,  would  fail,  because  only 
part  of  the  Union  strength  would  be  involved, 
whereas  the  whole  was  needed.  Moreover,  he 
clearly  foresaw  the  absolute  nature  of  a  great  civil 
war.  Foreign  wars  may  well,  and  often  do,  end  in 
some  sort  of  compromise,  especially  when  the  home 
life  of  the  opponents  can  go  on  as  before.    But  a 


178        CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

great  civil  war  cannot  end  in  compromise  because 
it  radically  changes  the  home  life  of  one  side  or  the 
other.  Davis  stood  for  "Independence  or  exter- 
mination"; Lincoln  simply  for  the  Union,  which, 
in  his  clear  prevision,  meant  all  that  the  body  poli- 
tic could  need  for  a  new  and  better  life.  He  ac- 
cepted the  word  "enemy"  as  descriptive  of  a  pass- 
ing phase.  He  would  not  accept  such  phraseology 
as  Meade's,  "driving  the  invader  from  our  soil." 
"Will  our  generals,"  he  complained,  "never  get 
that  idea  out  of  their  heads  .^^  The  whole  country  is 
our  soil." 

He  was  a  life-long  advocate  of  Emancipation, 
first,  with  compensation,  now  as  part  of  the  price 
to  be  paid  for  rebellion.  Emancipation,  however, 
depended  on  the  Union,  not  the  Union  on  it.  His 
Proclamation  was  ready  in  the  summer  of  '62. 
But  to  publish  it  in  the  midst  of  defeat  would  make 
it  look  like  an  act  of  despair.  In  September,  when 
the  Confederates  had  to  recross  the  Potomac  after 
Antietam,  the  Proclamation  was  given  to  the  world. 
Its  first  effect  was  greater  abroad  than  at  home; 
for  now  no  foreign  government  could  say,  and 
rightly  say,  that  the  war,  not  being  fought  on 
account  of  slavery,  might  leave  that  issue  still 
unsettled.    This  was  a  most  important  point  in 


LINCOLN:  WAR  STATESMAN  179 

Lincoln's  foreign  policy,  a  policy  which  had  been 
haunted  by  the  fear  of  recognition  for  the  South 
or  the  possibility  of  war  with  either  the  French  or 
British,  or  even  both  together. 

Lincoln's  Cabinet  was  composed  of  two  factions, 
one  headed  by  Seward,  the  Secretary  of  State,  the 
other  by  Chase,  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury. 
Both  the  fighting  services  were  under  War  Demo- 
crats: the  Army  under  Stanton,  the  Navy  under 
Welles.  All  these  ministers  began  by  thinking  that 
Lincoln  had  the  least  ability  among  them.  Seward 
and  Welles  presently  learnt  better.  Stanton's  ex- 
clamation at  Lincoln's  death  speaks  for  itself: 
"Now  he  belongs  to  the  ages!"  But  Chase  never 
believed  that  Lincoln  could  even  be  his  equal. 
Chase  and  the  Treasury  were  a  thorn  in  the  side  of 
the  Government;  Chase  because  it  was  his  nature, 
the  Treasury  because  its  notes  fell  to  thirty-nine 
cents  in  the  dollar  during  the  summer  of  '64. 
Welles,  hard-working  and  upright,  was  guided  by 
an  expert  assistant.  Stanton,  equally  upright  and 
equally  hard-working,  made  many  mistakes.  And 
yet,  when  all  is  said  and  done,  Stanton  was  a  really 
able  patriot  who  worked  his  hardest  for  what 
seemed  to  him  the  best. 

Such  were  the  four  chief  men  in  that  Cabinet 


180        CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

with  which  Lincoln  carried  out  his  Union  poHcy 
and  over  which  he  towered  in  what  became  tran- 
scendent statesmanship  —  the  head,  the  heart,  the 
genius  of  the  war.  He  never,  for  one  moment, 
changed  his  course,  but  kept  it  fixed  upon  the 
Union,  no  matter  what  the  winds  and  tides,  the 
currents  and  cross-currents  were.  Thus,  while  so 
many  lesser  minds  were  busy  with  flotsam  and  jet- 
sam of  the  controversial  storm,  his  own  serener 
soul  was  already  beyond  the  far  horizon,  voyaging 
toward  the  one  sure  haven  for  the  Ship  of  State. 

But  Lincoln  was  more  than  the  principal  civilian 
war  statesman:  he  was  the  constitutional  Com- 
mander-in-Chief of  all  the  Union  forces,  afloat  and 
ashore.  He  was  responsible  not  only  for  raising, 
supplying,  and  controHing  them,  but  for  their 
actual  command  by  men  who,  in  the  eyes  of  the 
law,  were  simply  his  own  lieutenants.  The  prob- 
lem of  exercising  civil  control  without  practicing 
civilian  interference,  always  and  everywhere  hard, 
and  especially  hard  in  a  civil  war,  was  particularly 
hard  in  his  case,  in  view  of  public  opinion,  the  press, 
his  own  war  policy,  and  the  composition  of  his 
Cabinet.  His  solution  was  by  no  means  perfect; 
but  the  wonder  is  that  he  reached  it  so  well  in  spite 


LINCOLN:  WAR  STATESMAN  181 

of  such  perverting  factors.  He  began  with  the 
mere  armed  mob  that  fought  the  First  Bull  Run 
beset  with  interference.  He  ended  with  Farragut, 
Grant,  and  Sherman,  combined  in  one  great  scheme 
of  strategy  that  included  Mobile,  Virginia,  and  the 
lower  South,  and  that,  while  under  full  civil  con- 
trol, was  mostly  free  from  interference  with  its 
naval  and  mihtary  work  —  except  at  the  fussy 
hands  of  Stanton. 

The  fundamental  difference  between  civil  con- 
trol, which  is  the  very  breath  of  freedom,  and  civil- 
ian interference,  which  means  the  death  of  all  effi- 
ciency, can  be  quite  simply  illustrated  by  suppos- 
ing the  proverbial  Ship  of  State  to  be  a  fighting 
man-of-war.  The  People  are  the  owners,  with  all 
an  owner's  rights;  while  their  chosen  Government 
is  their  agent,  with  all  an  agent's  delegated  power. 
The  fighting  Services,  as  the  word  itself  so  properly 
implies,  are  simply  the  People's  servants,  though 
they  take  their  orders  from  the  Government.  So 
far,  so  good,  within  the  limits  of  civil  control,  under 
which,  and  which  alone,  any  national  resources  — 
in  men,  money,  or  material  —  can  lawfully  be 
turned  to  warlike  ends.  But  when  the  ship  is 
fitting  out,  still  more  when  she  is  out  at  sea,  and 
most  of  all  when  she  is  fighting,  then  she  should  be 


182        CAPTAINS  OF  THE   CIVIL  WAR 

handled  only  by  her  expert  captain  with  his  expert 
crew.  Civilian  interference  begins  the  moment  any 
inexpert  outsider  takes  the  captain's  place ;  and  this 
interference  is  no  less  disastrous  when  the  outsider 
remains  at  home  than  when  he  is  on  the  actual  spot. 

Lincoln  and  Stanton  were  out  of  their  element 
in  the  strategic  fight  with  Lee  and  Stonewall  Jack- 
son, as  the  next  chapter  abundantly  proves.  But 
they  will  bear,  and  more  than  bear,  comparison 
with  Davis  and  Benjamin,  their  own  special  "op- 
posite numbers."  Benjamin,  when  Confederate 
Secretary  of  War  in  '62,  nearly  drove  Jackson  out 
of  the  service  by  ordering  him  to  follow  the  advice 
of  some  disgruntled  subordinates  who  objected  to 
being  moved  about  for  strategic  reasons  which  they 
could  not  understand.  To  make  matters  worse, 
Benjamin  sent  this  precious  order  direct  to  Jack- 
son without  even  informing  his  immediate  superior, 
"Joe"  Johnston,  or  even  Lee  himself.  Thus  dis- 
ciphne,  the  very  soul  of  armies,  was  attacked  from 
above  and  beneath  by  the  man  who  should  have 
been  its  chief  upholder.  Luckily  for  the  South 
things  were  smoothed  over,  and  Benjamin  learnt 
something  he  should  have  known  at  first. 

Davis  had  none  of  Lincoln's  diflBdence  about  his 
own  capacity  for  directing  the  strategy  of  armies. 


LINCOLN:  WAR  STATESMAN  183 

He  had  passed  through  West  Point  and  command- 
ed a  battalion  in  Mexico  without  finding  out  that 
his  fitness  stopped  there.  He  interfered  with  Lee 
and  Jackson,  sometimes  to  almost  a  disabhng  ex- 
tent. He  forced  his  enmity  on  "Joe"  Johnston 
and  superseded  him  at  the  very  worst  time  in  the 
final  campaign.  He  interfered  more  than  ever  just 
when  Lee  most  required  a  free  hand.  And  when 
he  did  make  Lee  a  real  Commander-in-Chief  the 
Southern  cause  had  been  lost  already.  Lincoln's 
war  statesmanship  grew  with  the  war.  Davis 
remained  as  he  was. 

Lincoln  had  to  meet  the  diflBculties  that  always 
occur  when  professionals  and  amateurs  are  serving 
together.  How  much  Lincoln,  Stanton,  profes- 
sionals, and  amateurs  had  to  do  with  the  system 
that  was  evolved  under  great  stress  is  far  too  com- 
plex for  discussion  here.  Suflice  it  to  say  this: 
Lincoln's  clear  insight  and  openness  of  mind  en- 
abled him  to  see  the  universal  "truth,  that,  other 
things  being  equal,  the  trained  and  expert  pro- 
fessional must  excel  the  untrained  and  inexpert 
amateur.  But  other  things  are  never  precisely 
equal;  and  a  war  in  which  the  whole  mass-man- 
hood is  concerned  brings  in  a  host  of  amateurs. 
Lincoln  was  as  devoid  of  prejudice  against  the 


184        CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

regular  oflBcers  as  he  was  against  any  other  class  of 
men ;  and  he  was  ready  to  try  and  try  again  to  find 
a  satisfactory  commander  among  them,  in  spite  of 
many  failures.  The  plan  of  campaign  proposed  by 
General  Winfield  Scott  (and  ultimately  carried 
out  in  a  modified  form)  was  dubbed  by  wiseacre 
public  men  the  "Anaconda  policy";  witlings  de- 
rided it,  and  the  people  were  too  impatient  for  any- 
thing except ' '  On  to  Richmond ! ' '  Scott,  unable  to 
take  the  field  at  seventy-five,  had  no  second-in- 
command.  Halleck  was  a  very  poor  substitute 
later  on.  In  the  meantime  McDowell  was  chosen 
and  generously  helped  by  Lincoln  and  Stanton. 
But  after  Bull  Run  the  very  people  whose  impa- 
tience made  victory  impossible  howled  him  down. 
Then  the  choice  fell  on  McClellan,  whose  notori- 
ous campaign  fills  much  of  our  next  chapter. 
There  we  shall  see  how  refractory  circumstances, 
Stanton's  waywardness  among  them,  forced  Lin- 
coln to  go  beyond  the  limits  of  civil  control.  Here 
we  need  only  note  McClellan's  personal  relations 
with  the  President.  Instead  of  summoning  him  to 
the  "White  House  Lincoln  often  called  at  McClel- 
lan's for  discussion.  McClellan  presently  began  to 
treat  Lincoln's  questions  as  intrusions,  and  one 
day  sent  down  word  that  he  was  too  tired  to  see  the 


LINCOLN:  WAR  STATESMAN  185 

President.  Lincoln  had  told  a  friend  that  he  would 
hold  MeClellan's  stirrups  for  the  sake  of  victory. 
But  he  could  not  abdicate  in  favor  of  McClellan  or 
any  one  else. 

It  was  none  of  Lincoln's  business  to  be  an  actual 
Commander-in-Chief.  Yet  night  after  weary  night 
he  sat  up  studying  the  science  and  art  of  war, 
groping  his  untutored  way  toward  those  general 
principles  and  essential  human  facts  which  his 
native  genius  enabled  him  to  reach,  but  never  quite 
understanding  —  how  could  he.''  —  their  practical 
application  to  the  field  of  strategy.  His  supremely 
good  common  sense  saved  him  from  going  beyond 
his  depth  whenever  he  could  help  it.  His  Military 
Orders  were  forced  upon  him  by  the  extreme  pres- 
sure of  impatient  public  opinion.  He  told  Grant 
"he  did  not  know  but  they  were  all  wrong,  and  he 
did  know  that  some  of  them  were." 

McClellan  was  not  the  only  failure  in  Virginia. 
Burnside  and  Hooker  also  failed  against  Lee  and 
Jackson.  All  three  suffered  from  civilian  interfer- 
ence as  well  as  from  their  own  defects.  At  last,  in 
the  third  year  of  the  war,  a  victor  appeared  in 
Meade,  a  good,  but  by  no  means  great,  commander. 
In  the  fourth  year  Lincoln  gave  the  chief  command 
to  Grant,  whom   he  had  carefully   watched  and 


186        CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

wisely  supported  through  all  the  ups  and  downs 
of  the  river  campaigns. 

Grant's  account  of  his  first  conference  alone  with 
Lincoln  is  eloquent  of  Lincoln's  wise  war  states- 
manship : 

He  stated  that  he  had  never  professed  to  be  a  military 
man  or  to  know  how  campaigns  should  be  conducted, 
and  never  wanted  to  interfere  in  them.  .  .  .  All  he 
wanted  was  some  one  who  would  take  the  responsibil- 
ity and  act,  and  call  on  him  for  all  the  assistance  need- 
ed, pledging  himself  to  use  all  the  power  of  the  govern- 
ment in  rendering  such  assistance.  .  .  .  He  pointed 
out  on  the  map  two  streams  which  empty  into  the  Poto- 
mac, and  suggested  that  the  army  might  be  moved  on 
boats  and  landed  between  the  mouths  of  these  streams. 
We  would  then  have  the  Potomac  to  bring  our  supplies 
and  the  tributaries  would  protect  our  jQanks  while  we 
moved  out.  I  listened  respectfully,  but  did  not  sug- 
gest that  the  same  streams  would  protect  Lee's  flanks 
while  he  was  shutting  us  up.  I  did  not  communicate 
my  plans  to  the  President ;  nor  did  I  to  the  Secretary  of 
War  or  to  General  Halleck. 

Trust  begot  trust;  and  some  months  later  Grant 
showed  war  statesmanship  of  the  same  magnificent 
kind.  McClellan  had  become  the  Democratic  can- 
didate for  President,  to  the  well-founded  alarm  of 
all  who  put  the  Union  first.  In  June,  when  Grant 
and  Lee  were  at  grips  round  Richmond,  Lincoln  was 


LINCOLN:  WAR  STATESMAN  187 

invited  to  a  public  meeting  got  up  in  honor  of  Grant 
with  only  a  flimsy  disguise  of  the  ominous  fact  that 
Grant,  and  not  Lincoln,  might  be  the  Union  choice. 
Lincoln  sagaciously  wrote  back:  *'It  is  impossible 
for  me  to  attend.  I  approve  nevertheless  of  what- 
ever may  tend  to  strengthen  and  sustain  General 
Grant  and  the  noble  armies  now  under  his  com- 
mand. He  and  his  brave  soldiers  are  now  in  the 
midst  of  their  great  trial,  and  I  trust  that  at  your 
meeting  you  will  so  shape  your  good  words  that 
they  may  turn  to  men  and  guns,  moving  to  his  and 
their  support."  The  danger  to  the  Union  of  taking 
Grant  away  from  the  front  moved  Lincoln  deeply 
all  through  that  anxious  summer  of  '64,  though  he 
never  thought  Grant  would  leave  the  front  with  his 
work  half  done.  In  August  an  officious  editor  told 
Lincoln  that  he  ought  to  take  a  good  long  rest. 
Lincoln,  however,  was  determined  to  stand  by  his 
own  post  of  duty  and  find  out  from  Grant,  through 
their  common  friend,  John  Eaton,  what  Grant's 
own  views  of  such  ideas  were.  This  is  Eaton's 
account  of  how  Grant  took  it: 

We  had  been  talking  very  quietly.  But  Grant's  reply 
came  in  an  instant  and  with  a  violence  for  which  I  was 
not  prepared.  He  brought  his  clenched  fists  down 
hard  on  the  strap  arms  of  his  camp  chair.    "  They  can't 


188        CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

do  it.  They  can't  compel  me  to  do  it."  Emphatic 
gesture  was  not  a  strong  point  with  Grant.  "Have 
you  said  this  to  the  President.?"  "No,"  said  Grant, 
"  I  have  not  thought  it  worth  while  to  assure  the  Presi- 
dent of  my  opinion.  I  consider  it  as  important  for  the 
cause  that  he  should  be  elected  as  that  the  army  should 
be  successful  in  the  field." 

When  Eaton  brought  back  his  report  Lincoln 
simply  said,  "I  told  you  they  could  not  get  him  to 
run  till  he  had  closed  out  the  rebellion." 

On  the  twenty- third  of  this  same  gloomy  August, 
lightened  only  by  the  taking  of  Mobile,  Lincoln 
asked  his  Cabinet  if  they  would  endorse  a  memo- 
randum without  reading  it.  They  all  immediately 
signed.  After  his  reelection  in  November  he  read 
it  out:  "This  morning,  as  for  some  days  past,  it 
seems  exceedingly  probable  that  this  Administra- 
tion will  not  be  reelected.  Then  it  will  be  my  duty 
to  so  cooperate  with  the  President-elect  as  to  save 
the  Union  between  the  election  and  the  inaugura- 
tion, as  he  will  have  secured  his  election  on  such 
ground  that  he  cannot  possibly  save  it  afterwards." 
He  added  that  he  would  have  asked  McClellan  to 
throw  his  whole  influence"  into  getting  enough  re- 
cruits to  finish  the  war  before  the  fourth  of  March. 
"And  McClellan, "  was  Seward's  comment,  "would 
have  said  *  Yes,  yes,'  and  then  done  nothing." 


LINCOLN:  WAR  STATESMAN  189 

Lincoln's  reelection  was  helped  by  Farragut's 
victory  in  August,  Sherman's  in  September,  and 
Sheridan's  raid  through  the  Shenandoah  Valley  in 
October.  But  it  was  also  helped  by  that  strange, 
vivifying  touch  which  passes,  no  one  knows  how, 
from  the  man  who  best  embodies  a  supremely  pa- 
triotic cause  to  the  masses  of  his  fellow  patriots, 
and  then,  at  some  great  crisis,  when  they  scale 
heights  which  he  has  long  since  trod,  comes  back 
in  flood  and  carries  him  to  power. 

Lincoln  stories  were  abroad;  the  true  were  echps- 
ing  the  false;  and  all  the  true  ones  gained  him  in- 
creasing credit.  Naval  reformers,  and  many  others 
too,  enjoyed  the  homely  wit  with  which  he  closed 
the  first  conference  about  such  a  startlingly  novel 
craft  as  the  plans  for  the  Monitor  promised :  "Well, 
Gentlemen,  all  I  have  to  say  is  what  the  girl  said 
when  she  put  her  foot  into  the  stocking :  '  It  strikes 
me  there's  something  in  it.'"  The  army  enjoyed 
the  joke  against  the  three-month  captain  whom 
Sherman  threatened  to  shoot  if  he  went  home  with- 
out leave.  The  same  day  Lincoln,  visiting  the 
camp,  was  harangued  by  this  prospective  deserter 
in  presence  of  many  another  man  disheartened  by 
Bull  Run.  "Mr.  President:  this  morning  I  spoke 
to  Colonel  Sherman  and  he  threatened  to  shoot 


190        CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

me.  Sir!"  Lincoln  looked  the  two  men  over,  and 
then,  in  a  stage  whisper  every  listener  could  hear, 
said:  "Well,  if  I  were  you,  and  he  threatened  to 
shoot  me,  I  wouldn't  trust  him;  for  I'm  sure  he'd 
do  it."  Both  Services  were  not  only  pleased  with 
the  "rise"  Lincoln  took  out  of  a  too  inquisitive 
politician  but  were  much  reassured  by  its  model 
discretion.  This  importunate  politician  so  bad- 
gered Lincoln  about  the  real  destination  of  Mc- 
Clellan's  transports  that  Lincoln  at  last  promised 
to  tell  everything  he  could  if  the  politician  would 
promise  not  to  repeat  it.  Then,  after  swearing  the 
utmost  secrecy,  the  politician  got  the  news :  *'  They 
are  going  to  sea." 

The  whole  home  front  as  well  as  the  Services 
were  touched  to  the  heart  by  tales  of  Lincoln's 
kindness  in  his  many  interviews  with  the  war- 
bereaved;  and  letters  like  these  spoke  for  them- 
selves to  every  patriot  in  the  land: 

Executive  Mansion,  November  21,  1864. 

Mrs.  BiXBY,  Boston,  Massachusetts. 

Dear  Madam  :  I  have  been  shown  in  the  files  of  the 
War  Department  a  statement  of  the  Adjutant-Gen- 
eral of  Massachusetts  that  you  are  the  mother  of  five 
sons  who  have  died  gloriously  on  the  field  of  battle.  I 
feel  how  weak  and  fruitless  must  be  any  words  of  mine 


LINCOLN:  WAR  STATESMAN  191 

which  should  attempt  to  beguile  you  from  the  grief  of 
a  loss  so  overwhelming.  But  I  cannot  refrain  from 
tendering  to  you  the  consolation  that  may  be  found  in 
the  thanks  of  the  Republic  they  died  to  save.  I  pray 
that  our  heavenly  Father  may  assuage  the  anguish  of 
your  bereavement,  and  leave  you  only  the  cherished 
memory  of  the  loved  and  lost,  and  the  solemn  pride 
that  must  be  yours  to  have  laid  so  costly  a  sacrifice 
upon  the  altar  of  freedom. 

Yours  very  sincerely  and  respectfully, 

Abraham  Lincoln. 


Nor  did  the  Lincoln  touch  stop  there.  It  even 
began  to  make  its  quietly  persuasive  way  among 
the  finer  spirits  of  the  South  from  the  very  day  on 
which  the  Second  Inaugural  closed  with  words 
which  were  the  noblest  consummation  of  the  pro- 
phecy made  in  the  First.  This  was  the  prophecy: 
"The  mystic  chords  of  memory,  stretching  from 
every  battlefield  and  patriot  grave  to  every  living 
heart  and  hearthstone,  all  over  this  broad  land,  will 
yet  swell  the  chorus  of  the  Union,  when  again 
touched,  as  surely  they  will  be,  by  the  better  an- 
gels of  our  nature."  And  this  the  consummation: 
"With  malice  toward  none,  with  charity  for  all, 
with  firmness  in  the  right,  as  God  gives  us  to  see 
the  right,  let  us  strive  on  to  finish  the  work  we  are 
in,  to  bind  up  the  nation's  wounds,  to  care  for  him 


192        CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

who  shall  have  borne  the  battle  and  for  his  widow 
and  his  orphan  —  to  do  all  which  may  achieve  and 
cherish  a  just  and  lasting  peace  among  ourselves 
and  with  all  nations." 


CHAPTER  VI 

LEE    AND   JACKSON:    1862-3 

Most  Southerners  remained  spellbound  by  the 
glamour  of  Bull  Run  till  the  hard,  sharp  truths  of 
'62  began  to  rouse  them  from  their  flattering  dream. 
They  fondly  hoped,  and  even  half  believed,  that  if 
another  Northern  army  dared  to  invade  Virginia 
it  would  certainly  fail  against  their  entrenchments 
at  Bull  Run.  If,  so  ran  the  argument,  the  North 
failed  in  the  open  field  it  must  fail  still  worse 
against  a  fortified  position. 

The  Southern  generals  vainly  urged  their  Gov- 
ernment to  put  forth  its  utmost  strength  at  once, 
before  the  more  complex  and  less  united  North  had 
time  to  recover  and  begin  anew.  They  asked  for 
sixty  thousand  men  at  Bull  Run,  to  be  used  for 
a  vigorous  counterstroke  at  Washington.  They 
pointed  out  the  absurdity  of  misusing  the  Bull  Run 
(or  Manassas)  position  as  a  mere  shield,  fixed  to 
one  spot,  instead  of  making  it  the  hilt  of  a  sword 

13  193 


194        CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

thrust  straight  at  the  heart  of  the  North.  Robert 
E.  Lee,  now  a  full  general  in  the  Confederate  Army 
and  adviser  to  the  President,  grasped  the  whole 
situation  from  the  first  and  urged  the  right  solu- 
tion in  the  official  way.  Stonewall  Jackson,  still  a 
junior  general,  was  in  full  accord  with  Lee,  as  we 
know  from  the  confidential  interview  (at  the  end 
of  October,  '6l)  between  him  and  his  divisional 
commander,  General  G.  W.  Smith,  who  made  it 
public  many  years  later.  The  gist  of  Jackson's 
argument  was  this:  "McClellan  won't  come  out 
this  year  with  his  army  of  recruits.  We  ought  to 
invade  now,  not  wait  to  be  invaded  later  on.  If 
Davis  would  concentrate  every  man  who  can  be 
spared  from  all  other  points  and  let  us  invade 
before  winter  sets  in,  then  McClellan's  recruits 
couldn't  stand  against  us  in  the  field.  Let  us  cross 
the  upper  Potomac,  occupy  Baltimore,  and,  hold- 
ing Maryland,  cut  the  communications  of  Wash- 
ington, force  the  Federal  Government  out  of  it, 
beat  McClellan  if  he  attacks,  destroy  industrial 
plants  liable  to  be  turned  to  warlike  ends,  cut  the 
big  commercial  lines  of  communication,  close  the 
coal  mines,  seize  the  neck  of  land  between  Pitts- 
burg and  Lake  Erie,  live  on  the  country  by  requi- 
sition,  and  show  the  North  what  it  would  cost 


LEE  AND  JACKSON:  1862-3  195 

to  conquer  the  South."  On  asking  Smith  if  he 
agreed,  Smith  answered:  "I  will  tell  you  a  se- 
cret; for  I  am  sure  it  won't  be  divulged.  These 
views  were  rejected  by  the  Government  during 
the  conference  at  Fairfax  Court  House  at  the  be- 
ginning of  the  month."  Jackson  thereupon  shook 
Smith's  hand,  saying,  "I  am  sorry,  very  sorry," 
and,  mounting  Little  Sorrel  without  another  word, 
rode  sadly  away. 

Jefferson  Davis  probably,  and  some  of  his  Cab- 
inet possibly,  understood  what  Lee,  "Joe"  John- 
ston, Beauregard,  Smith,  and  Jackson  so  strongly 
urged.  But  they  feared  the  outcry  that  would 
assuredly  be  raised  by  people  in  districts  denuded 
of  troops  for  the  grand  concentration  elsewhere. 
So  they  remained  passive  when  they  should  have 
been  active,  and,  trying  to  strengthen  each  separate 
part,  fatally  weakened  the  whole. 

Meanwhile  the  North  was  collecting  the  differ- 
ent elements  of  warlike  force  and  changing  its 
Secretary  of  War.  Cameron  was  superseded  by 
Stanton  on  the  fifteenth  of  January.  Twelve  days 
later  Lincoln  issued  the  first  of  those  military  or- 
ders which,  as  we  have  just  seen,  he  afterwards 
told  Grant  that  the  impatience  of  the  loyal  North 
compelled  him  to  issue,  though  he  knew  some  were 


196        CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

certainly,  and  all  were  possibly,  wrong.  This  first 
order  was  one  of  the  certainly  wrong.  McClellan's 
unready  masses  were  to  begin  an  unlimited  mud 
march  through  the  early  spring  roads  of  Virginia 
on  the  twenty-second  of  February,  in  honor  of 
Washington's  birthday.  A  reconnoitering  staflF 
officer  reported  the  roads  as  being  in  their  proper 
places;  but  he  guessed  the  bottom  had  fallen  out. 
So  McClellan  was  granted  some  delay. 

His  grand  total  was  now  over  two  hundred  thou- 
sand men.  The  Confederate  grand  total  was  esti- 
mated at  a  hundred  and  fifteen  thousand  by  the 
civilian  detectives  whom  the  Federal  Government 
employed  to  serve  in  place  of  an  expert  intelligence 
staff.  The  detective  estimate  was  sixty-five  thou- 
sand men  out.  The  real  Confederate  strength  at 
this  time  was  only  fifty  thousand.  There  was  little 
chance  of  getting  true  estimates  in  any  other  way, 
as  the  Federal  Government  had  no  adequate  caval- 
ry. Most  of  the  few  cavalry  McClellan  com- 
manded were  as  yet  a  mere  collection  of  men  and 
horses,  quite  unfit  for  reconnoitering  and  testing 
an  enemy's  force. 

McClellan's  own  plan,  formed  on  the  suppo- 
sition that  the  Confederates  held  the  Bull  Run 
position  with  at  least  a  hundred  thousand  men, 


LEE  AND  JACKSON:  1862-3  197 

involved  the  transfer  of  a  hundred  and  fifty  thou- 
sand Federals  by  sea  from  Washington  to  Fortress 
Monroe,  on  the  historic  peninsula  between  the 
York  and  James  rivers.  Then,  using  these  rivers 
as  lines  of  communication,  his  army  would  take 
Richmond  in  flank.  Lincoln's  objection  to  this 
plan  was  based  on  the  very  significant  argument 
that  while  the  Federal  army  was  being  transported 
piecemeal  to  Fortress  Monroe  the  Confederates 
might  take  Washington  by  a  sudden  dash  from 
their  base  at  Centreville,  only  thirty  miles  off. 
This  was  a  valid  objection;  for  Washington  was  not 
only  the  Federal  Headquarters  but  the  very  em- 
blem of  the  Union  cause  —  a  sort  of  living  Stars 
and  Stripes  —  and  Washington  lost  might  well  be 
understood  to  mean  almost  the  same  as  if  the  Ship 
of  State  had  struck  her  colors. 

On  the  ninth  of  March  the  immediate  anxiety 
about  Washington  was  relieved.  That  day  came 
news  that  the  Monitor  had  checkmated  the  Merri- 
mac  in  Hampton  Roads  and  that  "Joe"  Johnston 
had  withdrawn  his  forces  from  the  Bull  Run  posi- 
tion and  had  retired  behind  the  Rappahannock  to 
Culpeper.  On  the  tenth  McClellan  began  a  recon- 
noitering  pursuit  of  Johnston  from  Washington. 
Having  found  burnt  bridges  and  other  signs  of 


198        CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

decisive  retirement,  he  at  last  persuaded  the  reluc- 
tant Lincoln  to  sanction  the  Peninsula  Campaign. 
On  the  seventeenth  his  army  began  embarking  for 
Fortress  Monroe,  ten  thousand  men  at  a  time,  that 
being  all  the  transports  could  carry.  For  a  week 
the  movement  of  troops  went  on  successfully;  while 
the  Confederates  could  not  make  out  what  was  hap- 
pening along  the  coast.  Everything  also  seemed 
quite  safe,  from  the  Federal  point  of  view,  in  the 
Shenandoah  Valley,  where  General  Banks  com- 
manded. And  both  there  and  along  the  Potomac 
the  Federals  were  in  apparently  overwhelming 
strength;  even  though  the  detectives  doing  duty 
as  staff  officers  still  kept  on  doubling  the  numbers 
of  all  the  Confederates  under  arms. 

Suddenly,  on  the  twenty-third,  a  fight  at  Kerns- 
town  in  the  Shenandoah  Valley  gave  a  serious 
shock  to  the  victorious  Federals,  not  only  there  but 
all  over  the  semicircle  of  invasion,  from  West  Vir- 
ginia round  by  the  Potomac  and  down  to  Fortress 
Monroe.  The  fighting  on  both  sides  was  magnifi- 
cent. Yet  Kernstown  itself  was  a  very  small  affair. 
Little  more  than  ten  thousand  men  had  been  in 
action:  seven  thousand  Federals  under  Shields 
against  half  as  many  Confederates  under  Stone- 
wall Jackson.    The  point  is  that  Jackson's  attack. 


LEE  AND  JACKSON:  1862-3  199 

though  unsuccessful,  was  very  disconcerting  else- 
where. From  Kernstown  the  area  of  disturbance 
spread  like  wildfire  till  the  tactical  victory  of  seven 
thousand  Federals  had  spoilt  the  strategy  of  thirty 
times  as  many.  Shields  reported:  "I  set  to  work 
during  the  night  to  bring  together  all  the  troops 
within  my  reach.  I  sent  an  express  after  Williams's 
division,  requesting  the  rear  brigade,  about  twenty 
miles  distant,  to  march  all  night  and  join  me  in  the 
morning.  I  swept  the  posts  in  rear  of  almost  all 
their  guards,  hurrying  them  forward  by  forced 
marches,  to  be  with  me  at  daylight."  Banks,  now 
on  his  way  to  Washington,  halted  in  alarm  at  Har- 
per's Ferry.  McClellan,  perceiving  that  Jackson's 
little  force  was  more  than  a  mere  corps  of  observa- 
tion, approved  Banks  and  added:  "As  soon  as  you 
are  strong  enough  push  Jackson  hard  and  drive 
him  well  beyond  Strasburg, "  that  is,  west  of  the 
Massanuttons,  where  Fremont  could  close  in  and 
finish  him.  Lincoln  had  already  been  thinking  of 
transferring  nine  thousand  men  from  McClellan  to 
Fremont.  Kernstown  decided  it;  so  ofiP  they  went 
to  West  Virginia.  Still  fearing  an  attack  on  Wash- 
ington, Lincoln  halted  McDowell's  army  corps, 
thirty-seven  thousand  strong,  on  the  march  over- 
land to  join  McClellan  on  the  Peninsula,  and  kept 


200        CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

them  stuck  fast  round  Centreville,  near  BuU  Run. 
And  so  McClellan's  Peninsular  force  was  suddenly 
reduced  by  forty-six  thousand  men. 

April  was  a  month  of  maneuvers  and  suspense. 
By  the  end  of  it  McClellan,  based  on  Fortress 
Monroe,  had  accumulated  a  hundred  and  ten 
thousand  men.  The  Confederates  on  the  Penin- 
sula, holding  Yorktown,  numbered  fifty  thousand. 
McClellan  sadly  missed  McDowell,  whose  corps 
was  to  have  taken  the  fort  at  Gloucester  Point 
that  prevented  the  Federal  gunboats  from  turning 
the  enemy's  lines  at  Yorktown.  McDowell  moved 
south  to  Fredericksburg,  leaving  a  small  force  near 
Manassas  Junction  to  connect  him  with  the  garri- 
son of  Washington.  The  Confederates  could  spare 
onl}^  twelve  thousand  men  to  watch  him.  Mean- 
while Banks  occupied  the  Shenandoah  Valley, 
having  twenty  thousand  men  at  Harrisonburg  and 
smaller  forces  at  several  points  all  round,  from 
southwest  to  northeast,  each  designed  to  form  part 
of  the  net  that  was  soon  to  catch  Jackson.  Be- 
yond Banks  stood  Fremont's  force  in  West  Vir- 
ginia, also  ready  to  close  in.  Jackson's  complete 
grand  total  was  less  than  that  of  Banks's  own  main 
body.  Yet,  with  one  eye  on  Richmond,  he  lay  in 
wait  at  Swift  Run  Gap,  crouching  for  a  tiger-spring 


LEE  AND  JACKSON:  1862-3  201 

at  Banks.  Virginia  was  semicircled  by  superior 
forces.  But  everywhere  inside  the  semicircle  the 
Confederate  parts  all  formed  one  strategic  whole; 
while  the  Federal  parts  outside  did  not.  More- 
over, the  South  had  already  decided  to  call  up 
every  available  man;  thus  forestalling  the  North 
by  more  than  ten  months  on  the  vital  issue  of 
conscription. 

In  May  the  preliminary  clash  of  arms  began  on 
the  Peninsula.  The  Confederates  evacuated  the 
Yorktown  lines  on  the  third.  On  the  fifth  Mc- 
Clellan's  advanced  guard  fought  its  way  past  Wil- 
liamsburg. On  the  seventh  he  began  changing  his 
base  from  Fortress  Monroe  to  White  House  on  the 
Pamunkey.  Here  on  the  sixteenth  he  was  within 
twenty  miles  of  Richmond,  while  all  the  seaways 
behind  him  were  safe  in  Union  hands.  The  fate 
not  only  of  Richmond  but  of  the  whole  South 
seemed  trembling  in  the  scales.  The  Northern 
armies  had  cleared  the  Mississippi  down  to  Mem- 
phis. The  Northern  navy  had  taken  New  Orleans, 
the  greatest  Southern  port.  And  now  the  North- 
ern hosts  were  striking  at  the  Southern  capital. 
McClellan  with  double  numbers  from  the  east, 
McDowell  with  treble  numbers  from  the  north, 
and  the  Union  navy,  with  more  than  fourfold 


202        CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

strength  on  all  the  navigable  waters,  were  closing 
in.  The  Confederate  Government  had  even  de- 
cided to  take  the  extreme  step  of  evacuating  Rich- 
mond, hoping  to  prolong  the  struggle  elsewhere. 
The  official  records  had  been  packed.  Davis  had 
made  all  arrangements  for  the  flight  of  his  family. 
And  from  Drewry's  Bluff,  eight  miles  south  of 
Richmond,  the  masts  of  the  foremost  Federal 
vessels  could  be  seen  coming  up  the  James,  where, 
on  the  eleventh,  the  Merrimac,  having  grounded, 
had  been  destroyed  by  her  own  commander. 

But  the  General  Assembly  of  Virginia,  passion- 
ately seconded  by  the  City  Council,  petitioned  the 
Government  to  stand  its  ground  "till  not  a  stone 
was  left  upon  another."  Every  man  in  Richmond 
who  could  do  a  hand's  turn  and  who  was  not  al- 
ready in  arms  marched  out  to  complete  the  de- 
fenses of  the  James  at  Drewry's  Bluff.  Senators, 
bankers,  bondmen  and  free,  merchants,  laborers, 
and  ministers  of  all  religions,  dug  earthworks, 
hauled  cannon,  piled  ammunition,  or  worked,  wet 
to  the  waist,  at  the  big  boom  that  was  to  stop  the 
ships  and  hold  them  under  fire.  The  Government 
had  changed  its  mind.  Richmond  was  to  be  held 
to  the  last  extremity.  And  the  Southern  women 
were  as  willing  as  the  men. 


LEE  AND  JACKSON:  1862-3  203 

In  the  midst  of  all  this  turmoil  Lee  calmly  re- 
viewed the  situation.  He  saw  that  the  Federal 
gunboats  coming  up  the  James  were  acting  alone, 
as  the  disconnected  vanguard  of  what  should  have 
been  a  joint  advance,  and  that  no  army  was  yet 
moving  to  support  them.  He  knew  McClellan  and 
Banks  and  read  them  like  a  book.  He  also  knew 
Jackson,  and  decided  to  use  him  again  in  the  Shen- 
alidoah  Valley  as  a  menace  to  Washington.  Writ- 
ing to  him  on  the  sixteenth  of  May,  the  very  day 
McClellan  reached  White  House,  only  twenty 
miles  from  Richmond,  he  said:  "Whatever  move- 
ment you  make  against  Banks,  do  it  speedily,  and, 
if  successful,  drive  him  back  towards  the  Potomac, 
and  create  the  impression,  as  far  as  possible,  that 
you  design  threatening  that  line."  Moreover,  out 
of  his  own  scanty  forces,  !he  sent  Jackson  two  ex- 
cellent brigades.  Thus,  while  the  great  Federal 
civilians  who  knew  nothing  practical  of  war  were 
all  agog  about  Richmond,  a  single  point  at  one  end 
of  the  semicircle,  the  great  Confederate  strate- 
gist was  forging  a  thunderbolt  to  relieve  the  pres- 
sure on  it  by  striking  the  Federal  center  so  as 
to  threaten  Washington.  The  fundamental  idea 
was  a  Fabian  defensive  at  Richmond,  a  vigor- 
ous  offensive  in  the  Valley,  to  produce  Federal 


204        CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

dispersion  between  these  points  and  Washington; 
then  rapid  concentration  against  McClellan  on 
the  Chickahominy. 

The  unsupported  Federal  gunboats  were  stopped 
and  turned  back  at  the  boom  near  Drewry's  Bluff. 
McClellan,  bent  on  besieging  Richmond  in  due 
form,  crawled  cautiously  about  the  intervening 
swamps  of  the  oozy  Chickahominy.  McDowell, 
who  could  not  advance  alone,  remained  at  Fred- 
ericksburg. Shields  stood  behind  him,  near  Cat- 
lett's  Station,  to  keep  another  eye  on  nervous 
Washington. 

In  the  meantime  Stonewall  Jackson,  still  in  the 
Shenandoah,  had  fought  no  battles  since  his  tac- 
tical defeat  at  Kernstown  on  the  twenty-third  of 
March  had  proved  such  a  pregnant  strategic  vic- 
tory elsewhere.  But  late  in  April  he  had  a  letter 
from  Lee,  telling  of  the  general  situation  and  sug- 
gesting an  attack  on  Banks.  Banks,  however,  still 
had  twenty  thousand  men  at  Harrisonburg,  with 
twenty -five  thousand  more  in  or  within  call  of  the 
Valley.  Jackson's  complete  grand  total  was  less 
than  eighteen  thousand.  The  odds  against  him 
therefore  exceeded  five  against  two;  and  direct  at- 
tack was  out  of  the  question.    But  he  now  began 


LEE  AND  JACKSON:  1862-3  205 

his  maneuvers  anew  and  on  a  bolder  scale  than 
ever.  He  had  upset  the  Federal  strategy  at  Kerns- 
town,  when  there  were  less  than  eight  thousand 
Confederates  in  the  Valley.  What  might  he  not  do 
with  ten  thousand  more.'*  His  wonderful  Valley 
Campaign,  famous  forever  in  the  history  of  war, 
gives  us  the  answer. 

He  had  five  advantages  over  Banks.  First,  his 
own  expert  knowledge  and  genius  for  war,  backed 
by  a  dauntless  character.  Banks  was  a  very  able 
man  who  had  worked  his  way  up  from  factory  hand 
to  Speaker  of  the  House  of  Representatives  and 
Governor  of  Massachusetts.  But  he  had  neither  the 
knowledge,  genius,  nor  character  required  for  high 
command;  and  he  owed  his  present  position  more 
to  his  ardor  as  a  politician  than  to  his  ability  as 
a  general.  Jackson's  second  advantage  was  his 
own  and  his  army's  knowledge  of  the  country  for 
which  they  naturally  fought  with  a  loving  zeal 
which  no  invaders  could  equal.  The  third  ad- 
vantage was  in  having  Turner  Ashby's  cavalry. 
These  were  horsemen  born  and  bred,  who  could 
make  their  way  across  country  as  easily  as  the 
"footy"  Federals  could  along  the  road.  In  answer 
to  a  peremptory  order  a  Federal  cavalry  com- 
mander could  only  explain:  "I  can't  catch  them. 


206        CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

They  leap  fences  and  walls  like  deer.  Neither  our 
men  nor  our  horses  are  so  trained."  The  fourth 
advantage  was  in  discipline.  Jackson  habitually 
spared  his  men  more  than  his  officers,  and  his  offi- 
cers more  than  himself,  whenever  indulgence  was 
possible.  But  when  discipline  had  to  be  sternly 
maintained  he  maintained  it  sternly,  throughout 
all  ranks,  knowing  that  the  flower  of  discipline  is 
self-sacrifice,  from  the  senior  general  down,  and 
that  the  root  is  due  subordination,  from  the  junior 
private  up.  After  the  Conscription  Act  had  come 
into  force  a  few  companies,  who  were  time-expired 
as  volunteers,  threw  down  their  arms  and  told 
their  colonel  they  wouldn't  serve  another  day.  On 
hearing  this  officially  Jackson  asked:  "Why  does 
Colonel  Grigsby  refer  to  me  to  learn  how  to  deal 
with  mutineers.'*  He  should  shoot  them  where  they 
stand."  The  rest  of  the  regiment  was  then  paraded 
with  loaded  arms,  facing  the  mutineers,  who  were 
given  the  choice  of  complete  submission  or  instant 
death.  They  chose  submission.  That  was  the  last 
mutiny  under  Stonewall  Jackson.  Both  sides  suf- 
fered from  straggling,  the  Confederates  as  much 
as  the  Federals.  But  Confederate  stragglers  re- 
joined the  better  of  the  two;  and  in  downright  de- 
sertion the  Federals  were  the  worse,  simply  because 


LEE  AND  JACKSON:  1862-3  207 

their  own  peace  party  was  by  far  the  stronger.  The 
final  advantage  brings  us  back  to  strategy,  on  which 
the  whole  campaign  was  turning.  Lee  and  Jackson 
worked  the  Confederates  together.  Lincoln  and 
Stanton  worked  the  Federals  apart. 

On  the  last  of  April  Jackson  slipped  away  from 
Swift  Run  Gap  while  Ewell  quietly  took  his  place 
and  Ashby  blinded  Banks  by  driving  the  Federal 
cavahy  back  on  Harrisonburg.  Jackson's  men 
were  thoroughly  puzzled  and  disheartened  when 
they  had  to  leave  the  Valley  in  full  possession  of 
the  enemy  while  they  ploughed  through  seas  of 
mud  towards  Richmond.  What  was  the  matter? 
Were  they  off  to  Richmond.'^  No;  for  they  pres- 
ently wheeled  round.  "Old  Jack's  crazy,  sure, 
this  time."  Even  one  of  his  staff  officers  thought 
so  himself,  and  put  it  on  paper,  to  his  own  confu- 
sion afterwards.  The  rain  came  down  in  driving 
sheets.  The  roads  became  mere  drains  for  the 
oozing  woods.  Wheels  stuck  fast;  and  Jackson 
was  seen  heaving  his  hardest  with  an  exhausted 
gun  team.  But  still  the  march  went  on  —  slosh, 
slosh,  squelch;  they  slogged  it  through.  Close 
up,  men !  —  close  up  in  rear !  —  close  up,  there, 
close  up! 

On  the  fourth  of  May  Jackson  got  word  from 


208        CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

Edward  Johnson,  commanding  his  detached  bri- 
gade near  Staunton,  that  Milroy,  commanding 
Fremont's  advanced  guard,  was  coming  on  from 
West  Virginia.  Jackson  at  once  seized  the  chance 
of  smashing  Mihoy  by  raiHng  in  to  Staunton  before 
Banks  or  Fremont  could  interfere.  This  would 
have  been  suicidal  against  a  great  commander  with 
a  well-trained  force.  But  Banks,  grossly  exag- 
gerating Jackson's  numbers,  was  already  marching 
north  to  the  railhead  at  New  Market,  where  he 
would  be  nearer  his  friends  if  Jackson  swooped 
down.  Detraining  at  Staunton  the  Confederates 
picketed  the  whole  neighborhood  to  stop  news 
getting  out  before  they  made  their  dash  against 
Milroy.  On  the  seventh  they  moved  off.  The 
cadets  of  the  Virginia  Military  Institute,  where 
Jackson  had  been  a  professor  for  so  many  years, 
had  just  joined  to  gain  some  experience  of  the  real 
thing,  and  as  they  stepped  out  in  their  smart  uni- 
forms, with  all  the  exactness  of  parade-ground  drill, 
they  formed  a  marked  contrast  to  the  gaunt  sol- 
diers of  the  Valley,  half  fed,  half  clad,  but  wholly 
eager  for  the  fray. 

That  night  Milroy  got  together  all  the  men  he 
could  collect  at  McDowell,  a  little  village  just 
beyond  the  Valley  and  on  the  road  to  Gauley 


0                20              40               60     70  M 

1       1       r      1       1       1       1       1 

7|8 

PREP 

':::::::r.:::n:e"r:;:::^r::c:. 

LEE  AND  JACKSON:  1862-3  209 

Bridge  in  West  Virginia.  He  sent  posthaste  for 
reinforcements.  But  Fremont's  men  were  divid- 
ed too  far  west,  fearing  nothing  from  the  Valley, 
while  Banks's  were  thinking  of  a  concentration  too 
far  north. 

In  the  afternoon  of  the  eighth,  Milroy  attacked 
Jackson  with  great  determination  and  much  skill. 
But  after  a  stern  encounter,  in  which  the  outnum- 
bered Federals  fought  very  well  indeed,  the  Con- 
federates won  a  decisive  victory.  The  numbers 
actually  engaged  —  twenty-five  hundred  Federals 
against  four  thousand  Confederates  —  were  even 
smaller  than  at  Kernstown.  But  this  time  the 
Confederates  won  the  tactical  victory  on  the  spot 
as  well  as  the  strategic  victory  all  over  the  Valley; 
and  the  news  cheered  Richmond  at  what,  as  we 
have  seen  already,  was  its  very  darkest  hour.  The 
night  of  the  battle  Jackson  sent  out  strong  working 
parties  to  destroy  all  bridges  and  culverts  and  to 
block  all  roads  by  which  Fremont  could  reach  the 
Valley.  In  some  places  bowlders  were  rolled  down 
from  the  hills.  In  one  the  trees  were  felled  athwart 
the  path  for  a  mile.  A  week  later  Jackson  was 
back  in  the  Valley  at  Lebanon  Springs,  while  Fre- 
mont was  blocked  off  from  Banks,  who  was  now 
distractedly  groping  for  safety  and  news. 


210        CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

The  following  day,  the  famous  sixteenth,  we 
regain  touch  with  Lee,  who,  as  mentioned  already, 
then  wrote  to  Jackson  about  attacking  Banks  in  or- 
der to  threaten  Washington.  This  dire  day  at  Rich- 
mond, the  day  McClellan  reached  White  House, 
was  also  the  one  appointed  by  the  Southern  Gov- 
ernment as  a  day  of  intercession  for  God's  bless- 
ing on  the  Southern  arms.  None  kept  it  more  fer- 
vently, even  in  beleaguered  Richmond,  than  pious 
Jackson  in  the  Valley.  Then,  like  a  giant  refreshed, 
he  rose  for  swift  and  silent  marches  and  also  sudden 
hammer-strokes  at  Banks. 

Confident  that  all  would  now  go  well,  Washing- 
ton thought  nothing  of  the  little  skirmish  at  Mc- 
Dowell, because  it  apparently  disturbed  nothing 
beyond  the  Shenandoah  Valley.  The  news  from 
everywhere  else  was  good;  and  Federals  were  jubi- 
lant. So  were  the  civilian  strategists,  particularly 
Stanton,  who,  though  tied  to  his  desk  as  Secretary 
of  War,  was  busy  wire-pulling  Banks's  men  about 
the  Valley.  Stanton  ordered  Banks  to  take  post  at 
Strasburg  and  to  hold  the  bridges  at  Front  Royal 
with  two  detached  battalions.  This  masterpiece 
of  bungling  put  the  Federals  at  Front  Royal  in  the 
air,  endangered  their  communications  north  to 
Winchester,  and  therefore  menaced  the  Valley  line 


LEE  AND  JACKSON:  1862-3  211 

toward  Washington.    But  Banks  said  nothing;  and 
Stanton  would  have  snubbed  him  if  he  had. 

On  the  twenty- third  of  May  a  thousand  Federals 
under  Colonel  Kenly  were  sweltering  in  the  first 
hot  weather  of  the  year  at  Stanton's  indefensible 
position  of  Front  Royal  when  suddenly  a  long  gray 
line  of  skirmishers  emerged  from  the  woods,  the 
Confederate  bugles  rang  out,  and  Jackson's  battle 
line  appeared.  Then  came  a  crashing  volley,  which 
drove  in  the  Federal  pickets  for  their  lives.  Col- 
onel Kenly  did  his  best.  But  he  was  outflanked 
and  forced  back  in  confusion.  A  squadron  of  New 
York  cavalry  came  to  the  rescue;  but  were  them- 
selves outflanked  and  helpless  on  the  road  against 
the  Virginian  horsemen,  who  could  ride  across 
country.  Kenly  had  just  made  a  second  stand, 
when  down  came  the  Virginians,  led  by  Colonel 
Flournoy  at  racing  speed  over  fence  and  ditch, 
scattering  the  Federal  cavalry  like  chaff  before  the 
wind  and  smashing  into  the  Federal  infantry.  Two 
hundred  and  fifty  really  efficient  cavalry  took  two 
guns  (complete  with  limbers,  men,  and  horses), 
killed  and  wounded  a  hundred  and  fifty-four  of 
their  opponents,  and  captured  six  hundred  prison- 
ers as  well  —  and  all  with  a  loss  to  themselves  of 
only  eleven  killed  and  fifteen  wounded. 


212        CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

Ashby's  cavalry,  several  hundreds  strong,  pushed 
on  and  out  to  the  flanks,  cutting  the  wires,  de- 
stroying bridges,  and  blocking  the  roads  against 
reinforcements  from  beyond  the  Valley.  Three 
hours  after  the  attack  a  dispatch-rider  dashed  up 
to  Banks's  headquarters  at  Strasburg.  But  Banks 
refused  to  move,  saying,  when  pressed  by  his  staff 
to  make  a  strategic  retreat  on  W^inchester,  '*By 
God,  sir,  I  will  not  retreat !  We  have  more  to  fear 
from  the  opinions  of  our  friends  than  from  the 
bayonets  of  our  enemies!"  The  Cabinet  backed 
him  up  next  day  by  actually  proposing  to  reinforce 
him  at  Strasburg  with  troops  from  Washington  and 
Baltimore.  Nevertheless  he  was  forced  to  fly  for 
his  life  to  Winchester.  His  stores  at  Strasburg  had 
to  be  abandoned.  His  long  train  of  wagons  was 
checked  on  the  way,  with  considerable  loss.  And 
some  of  his  cavalry,  caught  on  the  road  by  horse- 
men who  could  ride  across  country,  were  smashed 
to  pieces. 

Jackson  pressed  on  relentlessly  to  Winchester 
with  every  one  who  could  march  like  "foot  caval- 
ry," as  his  Valley  men  came  to  be  called.  On 
the  twenty-fifth,  the  third  day  of  unremitting 
action,  he  carried  the  W^inchester  heights  and 
drove  Banks  through  the  town.    Only  the  Second 


LEE  AND  JACKSON:  1862-3  213 

Massachusetts,  which  had  aheady  distinguished 
itself  during  the  retreat,  preserved  its  formation. 
Ten  thousand  Confederate  bayonets  ghttered  in 
the  morning  sun.  The  long  gray  lines  swept  for- 
ward. The  piercing  rebel  yell  rose  high.  And 
the  people,  wild  with  joy,  rushed  out  of  doors  to 
urge  the  victors  on. 

By  the  twenty-sixth,  the  first  day  on  which  Stan- 
ton's reinforcements  from  Baltimore  and  Washing- 
ton could  possibly  have  fought  at  Strasburg,  the 
Confederates  had  reached  Martinsburg,  fifty  miles 
beyond  it.  Banks  had  already  crossed  the  Poto- 
mac, farther  on  still.  The  newsboys  of  the  North 
were  crying,  Defeat  of  General  Banks  !  Washington 
in  danger!  Thirteen  Governors  were  calling  for 
special  State  militia,  for  which  a  million  men  were 
volunteering,  spare  troops  were  hurrying  to  Har- 
per's Ferry,  a  reserve  corps  was  being  formed  at 
Washington,  the  Federal  Government  was  assum- 
ing control  of  all  the  raihoad  lines,  and  McClellan 
was  being  warned  that  he  must  either  take  Rich- 
mond at  once  or  come  back  to  save  the  capital. 
Nor  did  the  strategic  disturbance  stop  even  there; 
for  the  Washington  authorities  ordered  McDowell's 
force  at  Fredericksbm-g  to  the  Valley  just  as  it  was 
coming  into  touch  with  McClellan. 


214        CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

On  the  twenty-eighth  Jackson  might  have  taken 
Harper's  Ferry.  But  the  storm  was  gathering 
round  him.  A  great  strategist  directing  the  Fed- 
eral forces  could  have  concentrated  fifty  thousand 
men,  by  sunset  on  the  first  of  June,  against  Jack- 
son's Army  of  the  Valley,  which  could  not  possibly 
have  mustered  one-third  of  such  a  number.  Mc- 
Dowell arrived  that  night  at  Front  Royal.  He  had 
vainly  protested  against  the  false  strategy  imposed 
by  the  Government  from  Washington,  and  he  was 
not  a  free  agent  now.  Yet,  even  so,  his  force  was  at 
least  a  menace  to  Jackson,  who  had  only  two 
chances  of  getting  away  to  aid  in  the  defeat  of 
McClellan  and  the  saving  of  Richmond.  One  was 
to  outmarch  the  converging  Federals,  gain  interior 
lines  along  the  Valley,  and  defeat  them  there  in 
detail.  The  other  was  to  march  into  friendly  Mary- 
land, trusting  to  her  Southern  sentiments  for  help 
and  reinforcements.  He  decided  on  the  Valley 
route  and  marched  straight  in  between  his  enemies. 

His  fortnight's  work,  from  the  nineteenth  of  May 
to  the  first  of  June,  inclusive,  is  worth  summing  up. 
In  these  fourteen  days  he  had  marched  170  miles, 
routed  12,500  men,  threatened  an  invasion  of  the 
North,  drawn  McDowell  off  from  Fredericksburg, 
taken  or  destroyed  all  Federal  stores  at  Front 


LEE  AND  JACKSON:  1862-3  215 

Royal,  Winchester,  and  Martinsburg,  and  brought 
off  safely  a  convoy  seven  miles  long.  Moreover, 
he  had  done  all  this  with  the  loss  of  only  six  hun- 
dred, though  sixty  thousand  enemies  lay  on  three 
sides  of  his  own  sixteen  thousand  men. 

His  remaining  problem  was  harder  still.  It  was 
how  to  mystify,  tire  out,  check  short,  and  then  im- 
mobilize the  converging  Federals  long  enough  to 
let  him  slip  secretly  away  in  time  to  help  Johnston 
and  Lee  against  McClellan.  Jackson,  like  his  ene- 
mies, moved  tlirough  what  has  been  well  called 
the  Fog  of  War  —  that  inevitable  uncertainty 
through  which  all  commanders  must  find  their  way. 
But  none  of  his  enemies  equaled  him  in  knowledge, 
genius,  or  character  for  war. 

The  first  week  in  June  saw  desperate  marches  in 
the  Valley,  with  the  outnumbering  Federals  hot- 
foot on  the  trail  of  Jackson,  who  tm'ned  to  bay  one 
moment  and  at  the  next  was  off  again.  On  the 
sixth  the  Federals  got  home  against  his  rear  guard. 
It  began  to  waver,  and  Ashby  ordered  the  infantry 
to  charge.  As  he  gave  the  order  his  horse  fell  dead. 
In  a  flash  he  was  up,  waving  his  sword  and  shout- 
ing: "Charge,  for  God's  sake,  charge!  "  The  Con- 
federate line  swept  forward  gallantly.  But,  just 
as  it  left  the  wood,  Ashby  was  shot  through  the 


216        CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

heart.  His  men  avenged  him.  Yet  none  could  fill 
his  place  as  a  born  leader  of  irregular  light  horse. 

Next  morning  the  hounds  were  hot  upon  the  scent 
again :  Shields  and  Fremont  converging  on  Jackson, 
whom  they  would  run  to  earth  somewhere  north  of 
Staunton.  But  on  the  eighth  and  ninth  Jackson 
turned  sharply  and  bit  back,  first  at  Fremont  close 
to  Cross  Keys,  then  at  Shields  near  Port  Republic, 
Each  was  caught  alone,  just  before  their  point  of 
junction,  and  each  was  defeated  in  detail  as  well. 

Fully  to  appreciate  Jackson's  strategy  we  must 
compare  the  strategical  and  tactical  numbers  con- 
cerned throughout  this  short  but  momentous  Val- 
ley Campaign.  The  strategic  numbers  are  those  at 
the  disposal  of  the  commander  within  the  theater 
of  operations.  The  tactical  numbers  are  those 
actually  present  on  the  field  of  battle,  whether 
engaged  or  not.  At  McDowell  the  Federals  had 
30,000  in  strategic  strength  against  17,000  Con- 
federates; yet  the  Confederates  got  6000  on  to 
the  field  of  battle  against  no  more  than  2500.  At 
Winchester  the  Federal  strategic  strength  was  60,- 
000  against  16,000;  yet  the  Confederate  tactical 
strength  was  every  man  of  the  16,000  against  7500 
—  only  one-eighth  of  Banks's  grand  total.  At 
Cross  Keys  the  strategic  strengths  were  23,000 


LEE  AND  JACKSON:  1862-3  217 

Federals  against  13,000  Confederates;  yet  12,750 
Federals  were  beaten  by  8000  Confederates.  Fi- 
nally, at  Port  Republic,  the  Federals,  with  a  stra- 
tegic strength  of  22,000  against  the  Confederate 
12,700,  could  only  bring  a  tactical  strength  of 
4500  to  bear  on  6000  Confederates.  The  grand 
aggregate  of  these  four  remarkable  actions  is  well 
worth  adding  up.  It  comes  to  this  in  strategic 
strength:  135,000  Federals  against  58,700  Con- 
federates. Yet  in  tactical  strength  the  odds  are 
reversed;  for  they  come  to  this:  36,000  Confeder- 
ates against  only  27,250  Federals.  Therefore  Stone- 
wall Jackson,  with  strategic  odds  of  nearly  seven 
to  three  against  him,  managed  to  fight  with  tactical 
odds  of  four  to  three  in  his  favor. 

While  Jackson  was  fighting  in  the  Valley  the  Con- 
federates at  Richmond  were  watching  the  nightly 
glow  of  Federal  camp  fires.  McClellan  had  30,000 
men  north  of  the  Chickahominy,  waiting  for  Mc- 
Dowell to  come  back  from  his  enterprise  against 
Jackson,  and  75,000  south  of  it.  WTiat  could  the 
65,000  Confederates  do,  except  hold  fast  to  their 
lines?  To  Richmond  43^  miles:  so  read  the  sign- 
post at  the  Mechanicsville  bridge,  and  there  stood 
the  nearest  Federal  picket.     Johnston  and  Lee 


218        CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

knew,  however,  that  McClellan's  alarmist  detec- 
tives swore  to  a  Confederate  army  three  times  its 
actual  strength  at  this  time;  and  there  was  reason 
to  hope  that  the  consequent  moral  ascendancy 
would  help  the  shock  of  an  attack  suddenly  made 
on  one  of  INIcClellan's  two  wings  while  the  flooded 
Chickahominy  flowed  between  them  and  its  oozy 
swamps  bewildered  his  staff. 

Hearing  that  McDowell  need  not  be  feared, 
Johnston  attacked  at  daylight  on  the  thirty-first 
of  May.  The  battle  of  Seven  Pines  (known  also  as 
Fair  Oaks)  was  not  unlike  Shiloh.  The  Federals 
were  taken  by  surprise  on  the  first  day  and  only 
succeeded  in  holding  their  own  by  hard  fighting 
and  with  a  good  deal  of  loss.  A  mistake  was  made 
by  the  Confederate  division  told  off  for  the  attack 
on  the  key  to  the  Federal  front  (an  attack  which, 
if  completely  successful,  would  have  split  the  Fed- 
erals in  two)  and  the  main  bodies  were  engaged 
before  this  fatal  error  could  be  rectified.  So  the 
surprised  Federals  gtadually  recovered  from  the 
first  shock  and  began  to  feel  and  use  their  hitherto 
unrealized  strength.  On  the  second  day  (the  first 
of  June)  Johnston,  who  had  been  severely  wounded, 
was  plainly  defeated  and  compelled  to  fall  back  on 
Richmond  again. 


LEE  AND  JACKSON:  1862-3  219 

On  the  morrow  of  this  defeat  Lee  was  appointed 
to  "the  immediate  command  of  the  armies  in  east- 
ern Virginia  and  North  CaroHna."  Davis  was  not 
war  statesman  enough  to  make  him  Commander- 
in-Chief  till  'Q5  —  four  years  too  late.  Johnston 
did  not  reappear  till  he  tried  to  relieve  Vicksburg 
from  the  determined  attacks  of  Grant  in  '63. 

The  twelfth  of  June  will  be  remembered  for- 
ever in  the  annals  of  cavalry  for  Stuart's  first  great 
ride  round  McClellan's  host.  With  twelve  hun- 
dred troopers  and  two  horse  artillery  guns  he  stole 
out  beyond  the  western  flank  of  the  Federals  and 
reached  Taylorsville  that  evening,  twenty-two  miles 
north  of  Richmond.  Next  day  he  rode  right  in 
among  the  Federal  posts  in  rear,  discovering  that 
McClellan's  right  stretched  little  north  of  the 
Chickahominy,  that  it  was  not  fortified,  and  that 
it  did  not  rest  on  any  strong  natural  feature,  such 
as  a  swampy  stream.  This  was  exactly  the  infor- 
mation Lee  required.  So  far,  so  good.  The  Feder- 
als met  with  up  to  this  time  had  simply  been  ridden 
down.  But  now  the  whole  country  was  alarmed 
and  McClellan  had  forces  out  to  cut  Stuart  off 
on  his  return,  while  General  Cooke  (Stuart's 
father-in-law)  began  to  pursue  him  from  Hanover 
Court  House. 


220        CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

Then  Stuart  took  the  boldest  step  of  all,  deciding 
to  go  clear  round  the  rest  of  the  Federal  army.  At 
Tunstall's  Station  on  the  York  River  Railroad  he 
routed  the  guard,  tore  up  the  track,  destroyed  the 
stores  and  wagons,  cut  the  wires,  burnt  the  bridge, 
and  replenished  his  supplies.  Thence  southeast, 
by  the  Williamsburg  road,  his  column  marched 
under  a  full  summer  moon,  the  people  running  out 
of  doors,  wild  with  joy  at  his  daring.  At  sunrise 
he  reached  the  Chickahominy,  only  to  find  it 
flooded,  full  of  timber,  and  spanned  by  nothing 
better  than  a  broken  bridge.  But,  using  the  materi- 
als of  a  warehouse  to  make  a  footway,  the  troopers 
crossed  in  single  file,  leading  their  chargers,  which 
swam.  Waving  his  hand  to  the  Federals,  who  had 
just  arrived  too  late,  Stuart  pushed  on  the  remain- 
ing thirty-five  miles  to  Richmond,  rounding  the 
Federal  flank  within  range  of  Federal  gunboats  on 
the  James. 

This  magnificent  raid  not  only  procured  in  three 
days  information  that  McClellan's  civihan  detec- 
tives could  not  have  procured  in  three  years  but 
raised  Confederate  morale  and  depressed  the 
Federals  correspondingly.  Moreover,  it  drove  the 
first  nail  into  McClellan's  coffin.  For  in  October, 
just  after  another  Stuart  raid,  the  following  curious 


LEE  AND  JACKSON:  1862-S  221 

incident  occurred  on  board  the  Martha  Washington 
when  Lincoln  was  returning  from  an  Alexandria 
review  which  had  cheered  him  up  considerably, 
coming,  as  it  did,  after  Lee  had  failed  in  Maryland. 
By  way  of  answering  the  very  pertinent  question 
—  "Mr.  President,  how  about  McClellan?"  — 
Lincoln  simply  drew  a  ring  on  the  deck,  quietly 
adding:  "When  I  was  a  boy  we  used  to  play  a 
game  called  'Three  times  round  and  out.'  Stuart 
has  been  round  McClellan  twice.  The  third  time 
McClellan  will  be  out." 

Stuart  rode  ahead  of  his  troopers,  straight  to  Lee, 
who  immediately  wrote  to  Jackson  suggesting  that 
the  Army  of  the  Valley,  while  keeping  the  Federals 
alarmed  to  the  last  about  an  attack  on  the  line  of 
the  Potomac,  might  secretly  slip  away  and  join  a 
combined  attack  on  ISIcClellan.  Jackson,  who  had 
of  course  foreseen  this,  was  ready  with  every  blind 
known  to  the  art  of  war.  Even  his  staff  and  gen- 
erals knew  nothing  of  their  destination.  The  first 
move  was  so  secret  that  the  enemy  never  suspected 
anything  till  it  was  too  late,  while  friends  thought 
there  was  to  be  another  surprise  in  the  Valley.  The 
second  move  led  various  people  to  suspect  a  march 
on  Washington  —  no  bad  news  to  leak  out;  and 
nothing  but  misleading  items  did  leak  out.    The 


222        CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

Army  of  the  Valley  moved  within  a  charmed  circle 
of  cavalry  which  prevented  any  one  from  going 
forward,  ahead  of  the  advance,  and  swept  before  it 
all  stragglers  through  whom  the  news  might  leak 
out  by  the  rear.  On  the  twenty-third  of  June,  only 
eight  days  after  Stuart  had  reported  his  raid  to  Lee, 
Jackson  attended  Lee's  conference  at  the  same 
place,  Richmond.  The  Valley  Army  was  then  on 
its  thirty-mile  march  from  Frederick's  Hall  to  Ash- 
land, where  it  arrived  on  the  twenty-fifth,  fifteen 
miles  north. 

McClellan  had  over  a  hundred  thousand  men. 
Lee  had  less  than  ninety  thousand,  even  after  Jack- 
son had  joined  him.  To  attack  McClellan's  strong- 
ly fortified  front,  with  its  almost  impregnable 
flanks,  would  have  been  suicide.  But  McClellan's 
farther  right,  commanded  by  that  excellent  officer, 
FitzJohn  Porter,  lay  north  of  the  Chickahominy, 
with  its  own  right  open  for  junction  with  Mc- 
Dowell. So  Lee,  knowing  McClellan  and  the  state 
of  this  Federal  right,  decided  on  the  twenty-fourth 
to  attack  Porter  and  threaten  McClellan's  com- 
munications not  only  with  McDowell  to  the  north 
but  with  White  House,  the  Federal  base  twenty 
miles  northeast.  This  was  an  exceedingly  bold 
move,  first,  because  McClellan  had  plenty  of  men 


LEE  AND  JACKSON:  1862-3  223 

to  take  Richmond  during  Lee's  march  north, 
secondly,  because  it  meant  the  convergence  of 
separate  forces  on  the  field  of  battle  (Jackson  be- 
ing at  Ashland,  fifteen  miles  from  Richmond)  and, 
thirdly,  because  the  Confederates  were  inferior  in 
armament  and  in  supplies  of  all  kinds  as  well  as 
in  actual  numbers.  Magruder,  who  had  held  the 
Yorktown  lines  so  cleverly  with  such  inferior  forces, 
was  to  hold  Richmond  (on  both  sides  of  the  James) 
with  thirty-five  thousand  men  against  McClellan's 
seventy-five  thousand,  while  Lee  and  Jackson  con- 
verged on  Porter's  twenty-five  thousand  with  over 
fifty  thousand. 

Then  followed  the  famous  Seven  Days,  begin- 
ning on  the  twenty-sixth  of  June  near  the  signpost 
at  the  Mechanicsville  bridge  —  to  eichmond  43^ 
MILES  —  and  ending  at  Harrison's  Landing  on  the 
second  of  July.  On  the  twenty-sixth  the  attack 
was  made  with  consummate  strategic  skill.  But 
it  was  marred  by  bad  staff  work,  by  the  great  ob- 
structions in  Jackson's  path,  and  by  A.  P.  Hill's 
premature  attack  with  ten  thousand  men  against 
Porter's  admirable  front  at  Beaver  Dam  Creek. 
Hill's  men  moved  down  their  own  side  of  the  little 
valley  in  dense  masses  till  every  gun  and  rifle  on 
Porter's  side  was  suddenly  unmasked.    No  scythe 


224        CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

could  have  mowed  the  leading  Confederates  better. 
Two  thousand  went  down  in  the  first  few  minutes, 
and  the  rest  at  once  retreated. 

Porter  fell  back  on  Gaines's  Mill,  where,  after 
being  reinforced,  he  took  up  a  strong  position  on 
the  twenty-seventh.  Again  there  was  failure  in 
combining  the  attack.  Jackson  found  obstructions 
that  even  he  could  not  overcome  quickly  enough. 
Hill  attacked  again  with  the  utmost  gallantry,  wave 
after  wave  of  Confederates  rushing  forward  only  to 
melt  away  before  the  concentrated  fire  of  Porter's 
reinforced  command. 

But  at  last  the  Confederates  —  though  checked 
and  roughly  handled  —  converged  under  Lee's  own 
eye;  and  an  inferno  of  shot  and  shell  loosened 
and  shook  the  steadfast  Federal  defense.  Lee  and 
Jackson,  though  far  apart,  gave  the  word  for  the 
final  charge  at  almost  the  same  moment.  As  Jack- 
son's army  suddenly  burst  into  viev/  and  swept 
forward  to  the  assault  the  joyful  news  was  shouted 
down  the  ranks:  "The  Valley  men  are  here!" 
Thereupon  Lee's  men  took  up  the  double-quick 
with  "Stonewall  Jackson!  Jackson!  Jackson!"  as 
their  battle  cry.  The  Federals  fought  right  val- 
iantly till  their  key-point  suddenly  gave  way, 
smashed  in  by  weight  of  numbers;  for  Lee  had 


LEE  AND  JACKSON:  1862-3  225 

brought  into  action  half  as  many  again  as  Porter 
had,  even  with  his  reinforcements.  On  the  gal- 
lantly defended  hill  the  long  blue  lines  rocked, 
reeled,  and  broke  to  right  and  left  —  all  but  the 
steadfast  regulars,  whose  infantry  fell  back  in  per- 
fect order,  whose  cavalry  made  a  desperate  though 
futile  attempt  to  stay  the  rout  by  charging  one 
against  twenty,  and  whose  four  magnificent  bat- 
teries, splendidly  served  to  the  very  last  round, 
retired  unbroken  with  the  loss  of  only  two  guns. 
Then  the  Confederate  colors  waved  in  triumph  on 
the  hard-won  crest  against  the  crimson  of  the 
setting  sun. 

The  victorious  Confederates  spent  the  twenty- 
eighth  and  twenty-ninth  in  finding  the  way  to 
McClellan's  new  base.  His  absolute  control  of  all 
the  waterways  had  enabled  him  to  change  his  base 
from  White  House  on  the  Pamunkey  to  Harrison's 
Landing  on  the  James.  When  the  Confederates 
discovered  his  line  of  retreat  by  the  Quaker  Road 
they  pressed  in  to  cut  it.  On  the  thirtieth  there 
was  severe  fighting  in  White  Oak  Swamp  and  on 
Frayser's  Farm.  But  the  Federals  passed  through, 
and  made  a  fine  stand  on  Malvern  Hill  next  day. 
Finally,  when  they  turned  at  bay  on  the  Eveling- 
ton  Heights,  which  covered  Harrison's  Landing, 

IS 


226        CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

they  convinced  their  pursuers  that  it  would  be 
fatal  to  attack  again;  for  now  Northern  sea-pow- 
er was  visibly  present  in  flotillas  of  gunboats, 
which  made  the  flanks  as  hopelessly  strong  as 
the  front. 

McClellan  therefore  remained  safely  behind  his 
entrenchments,  with  the  navy  in  support.  He 
had  to  his  own  credit  the  strategic  success  of 
having  foiled  Lee  by  a  clever  change  of  base;  and 
to  the  credit  of  his  army  stood  some  first-rate 
fighting  besides  some  tactical  success,  especially 
at  Malvern  Hill.  Nevertheless  the  second  inva- 
sion of  Virginia  was  plainly  a  failure;  though  by 
no  means  a  glaring  disaster,  like  the  first  invasion 
at  Bull  Run. 

McClellan,  again  reinforced,  still  professed  his 
readiness  to  take  Richmond  under  conditions 
that  suited  himself.  But  the  most  promising  North- 
ern force  now  seemed  to  be  Pope's  Army  of  Vir- 
ginia, coming  down  from  the  line  of  the  Potomac, 
forty-seven  thousand  strong,  composed  of  excellent 
material,  and  heralded  by  proclamations  wliich 
even  McClellan  could  never  excel.  John  Pope, 
Halleck's  hero  of  Island  Number  Ten,  came  from 
the  West  to  show  the  East  how  to  fight.  "I  pre- 
sume that  I  have  been  called  here  to  lead  you 


LEE  AND  JACKSON:  1862-3  227 

against  the  enemy,  and  that  speedily.  I  hear  con- 
stantly of  taking  strong  positions  and  holding  them 
—  of  lines  of  retreat  and  bases  of  supplies.  Let  us 
discard  such  ideas.  Let  us  study  the  probable  line 
of  retreat  of  our  opponents,  and  leave  our  own  to 
take  care  of  themselves."  His  Army  of  Virginia 
contained  Fremont's  (now  Sigel's)  corps,  as  well  as 
those  of  Banks  and  McDowell  —  all  experts  in  the 
art  of  "chasing  Jackson." 

Jackson  was  soon  ready  to  be  chased  again.  The 
Confederate  strength  had  been  reduced  by  the 
Seven  Days  and  not  made  good  by  reinforcement; 
so  Lee  could  spare  Jackson  only  twenty-four  thou- 
sand men  with  whom  to  meet  the  almost  double 
numbers  under  Pope.  But  Jackson's  men  had  the 
better  morale,  not  only  on  account  of  their  previous 
service  but  because  of  their  rage  to  beat  Pope,  who, 
unlike  other  Northerners,  was  enforcing  the  harsh- 
est rules  of  war.  His  lieutenant.  General  von 
Steinwehr,  went  further,  not  only  seizing  promi- 
nent civilians  as  hostages  (to  be  shot  whenever  he 
chose  to  draw  his  own  distinctions  between  Con- 
federate soldiers  and  guerillas)  but  giving  his  Ger- 
man subordinates  a  liberty  that  some  of  them  knew 
well  how  to  turn  into  license.  This,  of  course,  was 
most  exceptional;  for  nearly  all  Northerners  made 


228        CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

war  like  gentlemen.  Unhappily,  those  who  did  not 
were  bad  enough  and  numerous  enough  to  infuriate 
the  South. 

Halleck,  who  had  now  become  chief  military  ad- 
viser to  the  Union  Government,  was  as  cautious  as 
McClellan  and  had  so  little  discernment  that  he 
thought  Pope  a  better  general  than  Grant.  Lin- 
coln, Stanton,  and  Halleck  put  their  heads  to- 
gether; and  an  order  soon  followed  which  had  the 
effect  of  relieving  the  pressure  on  Richmond  and 
giving  the  initiative  to  Lee.  Halleck  ordered 
McClellan  to  withdraw  from  Harrison's  Landing, 
take  his  Army  of  the  Potomac  round  by  sea  to 
Aquia  Creek,  and  join  Pope  on  the  Rappahannock 
—  an  operation  requiring  the  whole  month  of 
August  to  complete. 

Lee  lost  no  time.  His  first  move  was  to  get 
Pope's  advanced  troops  defeated  by  Jackson,  who 
brought  more  than  double  numbers  against  Banks 
at  Cedar  Run  on  the  ninth  of  August.  The  Fed- 
erals fought  magnificently,  nine  against  twenty 
thousand  men.  After  the  battle  Jackson  marched 
across  the  Rapidan,  and  Halleck  wisely  forbade 
Pope  from  following  him,  even  though  the  first  of 
Burnside's  men  (now  the  advanced  guard  of  Mc- 
Clellan's  army)  had  arrived  at  Aquia  and  were 


LEE  AND  JACKSON:  1862-3  229 

marching  overland  to  Pope.  Then  followed  some 
anxious  days  at  Federal  Headquarters.  Jackson 
vanished;  and  Pope's  cavalry,  numerous  as  it 
was,  wore  itself  out  trying  to  find  the  clue.  Mc- 
Clellan  was  still  busy  moving  his  men  from  Har- 
rison's Landing  to  Fortress  Monroe,  whence  de- 
tachments kept  sailing  to  Aquia.  What  would 
Lee  do  now? 

On  the  thu'teenth  he  began  entraining  Long- 
street's  troops  for  Gordonsville.  On  the  fifteenth 
he  conferred  with  his  generals.  And  on  the  seven- 
teenth, from  the  lookout  on  Clark's  Mountain,  he 
saw  Pope's  unsuspecting  army  camped  round 
Slaughter  Mountain  within  fifteen  miles  of  the 
united  Confederates.  Halleck  had  just  given  Pope 
the  fatal  order  to  "fight  like  the  devil"  till  McClel- 
lan  came  up.  Pope  was  full  of  confidence.  And 
there  he  lay,  in  a  bad  strategic  and  worse  tactical 
position,  and  with  slightly  inferior  numbers,  just 
within  reach  of  Jackson  and  Lee.  Pope  was,  how- 
ever, saved  from  immediate  disaster  by  an  over- 
sight on  the  part  of  Stuart.  In  ordering  Fitzhugh 
Lee's  cavalry  brigade  to  rendezvous  at  Verdierville 
that  night  Stuart  forgot  to  make  the  order  urgent 
and  the  missing  brigade  came  in  late.  Stuart, 
anxious  to  see  the  enemy's  position  for  himself. 


230        CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

rode  out  and  was  nearly  taken  prisoner.  His  dis- 
patch-box fell  into  Pope's  hands,  with  a  memoran- 
dum of  Jackson's  reinforcements.  Jackson  was 
for  attacking  next  day  in  any  case  and  groaned 
aloud  when  Lee  decided  not  to,  owing  to  the  failure 
of  cavalry  combination  in  front  and  the  belated 
supplies  in  the  rear.  Pope  retired  safely  on  the 
eighteenth,  and  on  the  nineteenth  a  thick  haze  hid 
his  rear  from  Lee's  lookout. 

Lee  was  now  in  a  very  difficult  position,  appar- 
ently face  to  face  with  what  would  soon  be  the 
joint  forces  of  Pope,  McClellan,  and  probably 
another  corps  from  Washington:  the  whole  well 
fed,  well  armed,  and  certainly  more  than  twice  as 
strong  as  the  united  Confederates.  But  Jackson 
and  Stuart  multiplied  their  forces  by  skillful  ma- 
neuvers and  mystifying  raids,  and  presently  Stuart 
had  his  revenge  for  the  affront  he  had  suffered  on 
the  seventeenth.  On  the  tempestuous  night  of 
the  twenty-second  he  captured  Pope's  dispatches. 
On  the  twenty-fourth,  at  Jefferson,  Lee  and  Jack- 
son discussed  the  situation  with  these  dispatches  be- 
fore them.  Dr.  Hunter  McGuire,  the  Confederate 
staff-surgeon,  noticed  that  Jackson  was  unusually 
animated,  drawing  curves  in  the  sand  with  the  toe 
of  his  boot  while  Lee  nodded  assent.     Perhaps  it 


LEE  AND  JACKSON:  1862-3  231 

was  Jackson  who  suggested  the  strategic  idea  of 
that  wonderful  last  week  in  August.  However 
that  may  have  been,  Lee  alone  was  responsible 
for  its  adoption  and  superior  direction. 

With  a  marvelous  insight  into  the  characters  of 
his  opponents,  a  consummate  knowledge  of  the  sci- 
ence and  art  of  war,  and  —  quite  as  important  — 
an  exact  appreciation  of  the  risks  worth  running,  Lee 
actually  divided  his  55,000  men  in  face  of  Pope's 
80,000,  of  20,000  more  at  Washington  and  Aquia, 
and  of  50,000  available  reinforcements.  Then, 
by  the  well-deserved  results  obtained,  he  became 
one  of  the  extremely  few  really  great  commanders 
of  all  time. 

The  "bookish  theorick"  who,  with  all  the  facts 
before  him,  revels  in  the  fond  delights  of  retro- 
spective prophecy,  will  never  understand  how  Lee 
succeeded  in  this  enterprise,  except  by  sheer  good 
luck.  Only  those  who  themselves  have  groped  their 
perilous  way  through  the  dense,  distorting  fog  of 
war  can  understand  the  application  of  that  knowl- 
edge, genius,  and  character  for  war  which  so  rarely 
unite  in  one  man. 

Lee  sent  Jackson  north,  to  march  at  utmost 
speed  under  cover  of  the  Bull  Run  Mountains,  to 
cross  them  at  Thoroughfare  Gap,  and  to  cut  Pope's 


CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

line  at  Manassas,  where  the  enormous  Federal 
field  base  had  been  established.  Unknown  to  Pope, 
Longstreet  then  slipped  into  Jackson's  place, 
so  as  to  keep  Pope  in  play  till  the  raid  on  Manas- 
sas and  threat  against  Washington  would  draw 
him  northeast,  away  from  McClellan  at  Aquia. 
The  final  move  of  this  profound,  though  very 
daring,  plan  was  to  take  advantage  of  the  Federal 
distractions  and  consequent  dispersions  so  as  to 
effect  a  junction  on  the  field  of  battle  against  a 
conquerable  force. 

Jackson  moved  off  by  the  first  gray  streak  of 
dawn  on  the  twenty-fifth,  and  that  day  made 
good  the  six-and-twenty  miles  to  Salem  Church. 
Screened  by  Stuart's  cavalry,  and  marching  through 
a  country  of  devoted  friends  on  such  an  errand 
as  a  commonplace  general  would  never  suspect, 
Jackson  stole  this  march  on  Pope  in  perfect  safe- 
ty. The  next  day's  march  was  far  more  danger- 
ous. Roused  while  the  stars  were  shining  the  men 
moved  off  in  even  greater  wonder  as  to  their  des- 
tination. But  when  the  first  flush  of  dawn  re- 
vealed the  Bull  Run  Mountains,  with  the  well- 
known  Thoroughfare  Gap  straight  to  their  front, 
they  at  once  divined  their  part  of  Lee's  stupendous 
plan:  a  giant  raid  on  Manassas,  the  Federal  base 


LEE  AND  JACKSON:  1862-3  233 

of  superabundant  supplies.  The  news  ran  down 
the  miles  of  men,  and  with  it  the  thrill  that  pre- 
saged victory.  Mile  after  mile  was  gained,  almost 
in  dead  silence,  except  for  the  clank  of  harness, 
the  rumble  of  wheels,  the  running  beat  of  hoofs, 
and  that  long,  low,  ceaselessly  rippling  sound  of 
multitudinous  men's  feet.  Hungry,  ill-clad,  and 
worn  to  their  last  spare  ounce,  the  gaunt  gray  ranks 
strained  forward,  shpped  from  their  leash  at  last 
and  almost  in  sight  of  their  prey.  So  far  they  were 
undiscovered.  But  the  Gap  was  only  ten  miles  by 
airline  from  Pope's  extreme  right,  and  the  tell-tale 
cloud  of  dust,  floating  down  the  mountain  side 
above  them,  must  soon  be  sighted,  signaled,  noted, 
and  attended  to.  Only  speed,  the  speed  of  "foot- 
cavalry,"  could  now  prevail,  and  not  a  man  must 
be  an  inch  behind.  Close  up,  men,  close  up !  — 
Close  up  there  in  rear  !  —  Close  up  !     Close  up  ! 

By  noon  the  head  of  the  column  had  already 
crossed  those  same  communications  which  Pope 
had  told  his  army  to  disregard  in  favor  of  the  much 
more  interesting  enemy  line  of  retreat.  Little  did 
he  think  that  the  man  he  had  come  to  chase  was 
about  to  burn  the  bridge  at  Bristoe  Station  and  thus 
cut  the  line  between  the  Federal  front  at  Warren- 
ton  and  the  Federal  base  at  Manassas.    All  went 


234        CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

well  with  Jackson,  except  that  some  news  escaped 
to  Washington  and  Warrenton  sooner  than  he 
expected.  A  Federal  train  dashed  on  to  Washing- 
ton before  the  rails  could  be  torn  up.  The  next 
two  trains  were  both  derailed  and  wrecked.  But 
the  fourth  put  all  brakes  down  and  speeded  back 
to  Warrenton.  Jackson  quickly  took  up  a  very 
strong  position  on  the  north  side  of  Broad  Run, 
behind  the  burnt  railway  bridge,  and  sent  Stuart's 
troopers  with  two  battalions  of  "foot-cavalry"  to 
raid  the  base  at  Manassas,  replenish  the  exhaust- 
ed Confederate  supplies,  and  do  the  northward 
scouting. 

The  situation  of  the  rival  armies  on  the  night  of 
the  twenty-seventh  forms  one  of  the  curiosities  of 
war.  Jackson  was  concentrating  round  Manassas 
Junction.  Lee  was  following  Jackson's  line  of  march, 
but  was  still  beyond  Thoroughfare  Gap.  Be- 
tween them  stood  part  of  Pope's  army,  the  whole 
of  which  occupied  an  irregular  quadrilateral  formed 
by  lines  joining  the  following  points:  Warrenton 
Junction,  Bristoe  Station,  Gainesville,  and  Thor- 
oughfare Gap.  Thirty  miles  northeast  were  the 
twenty  thousand  Federals  who  joined  Pope  too  late. 
Thirty  miles  southeast  the  rear  of  McClellan's 
forces  were  still   massing  at  Aquia.     In  Pope's 


LEE  AND  JACKSON:  1862-3  235 

opinion  Jackson  was  clearly  trapped  and  Lee 
cut  off. 

But  when  Pope  began  to  close  his  cumbrous  net 
the  following  day  Jackson  had  disappeared  again. 
Orders  and  counter-orders  thereupon  succeeded 
each  other  in  bewildering  confusion.  McClellan 
could  be  left  out:  and  a  very  good  thing  too, 
thought  Pope,  who  wanted  the  victory  all  to  him- 
self, and  whose  own  army  greatly  outnumbered 
Lee's  and  Jackson's  put  together.  But  Washing- 
ton was  nervous  again;  it  contained  the  reinforce- 
ments; and  it  had  suddenly  become  indispensable 
to  Pope  as  an  immediate  base  of  supplies  now  that 
the  base  at  Manassas  had  been  so  completely  de- 
stroyed. Pope's  troops  therefore  mostly  drew  east 
during  the  twenty-eighth,  forming  by  nightfall  a 
long  irregular  line,  facing  west,  with  its  right  beyond 
Centreville  and  its  extreme  left  held  by  Banks's 
mauled  divisions  south  of  Catlett's  Station. 
Meanwhile  Jackson  had  slipped  into  place  in  the 
curve  of  Bull  Run,  facing  southeast,  with  his  left 
near  Stone  Bridge,  his  back  to  Sudley  Springs,  and 
his  right  open  to  junction  with  Lee,  who  was  wait- 
ing for  daylight  to  force  the  Gap  against  the  single 
division  left  there  on  guard. 

During  the  afternoon,  while  Jackson's  tired  men 


236        CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

were  lying  sound  asleep  in  their  ranks,  Jackson 
himself  was  roused  to  see  captured  orders  which 
showed  that  some  Federals  were  crossing  his  front. 
Reading  these  orders  to  his  divisional  commanders 
he  immediately  ordered  one  to  attack  and  another 
to  support.  If  the  Federals  concerned  were  expos- 
ing an  unguarded  flank  they  should  be  attacked  at 
a  disadvantage.  If  they  were  screening  larger 
forces  trying  to  join  the  reinforcements  from  Wash- 
ington or  Aquia,  then  they  should  be  attacked  so 
as  to  distract  Pope's  attention  and  draw  him  on  be- 
fore the  Federal  union  became  complete,  though  not 
before  Lee  had  reached  the  new  Bull  Run  position 
the  following  day.  The  attack  was  consequently 
made  from  the  woods  around  Groveton  not  too  long 
before  dark.  It  resulted  in  a  desperate  frontal  fight, 
neither  side  knowing  what  the  other  had  in  its  rear 
or  on  its  flanks.  Again  the  Federals  were  outnum- 
bered :  twenty-eight  against  forty-five  hundred  men 
in  action.  But  again  they  fought  with  the  utmost 
resolution  and  drew  off  in  good  order.  The  strategic 
advantage,  however,  was  wholly  Confederate;  for 
Pope,  who  thought  Jackson  must  now  be  falling 
back  to  the  Gap,  at  once  began  confusedly  trying 
to  concentrate  for  pursuit  on  the  twenty-ninth  — 
the  very  thing  that  suited  Lee  and  Jackson  best. 


LEE  AND  JACKSON:  1862-3  257 

Early  that  morning  the  two-days'  Battle  of 
Second  Manassas  (or  Second  Bull  Run)  began 
with  Pope's  absurd  attempt  to  pursue  an  army 
drawn  up  in  line  of  battle.  Moreover,  Jackson's 
position  was  not  only  strong  in  itself  but  well 
adapted  for  giving  attackers  a  shattering  surprise. 
The  left  rested  on  Bull  Run  at  Sudley  Ford.  The 
center  occupied  the  edge  of  the  flat-topped  Stony 
Ridge.  A  quarter-mile  in  front  of  it,  and  some 
way  lower  down,  were  the  embankments  and  cut- 
tings of  an  unfinished  railroad.  On  the  right  was 
Stuart's  Hill,  where  Lee  was  to  join  by  sending 
Longstreet  in.  The  approaches  in  rear  were  hidden 
from  the  eyes  of  an  enemy  in  front.  The  cuttings 
and  embankments  made  excellent  field  works  for  the 
defense.  And  the  forward  edge  of  the  Ridge  was 
wooded  enough  to  let  counter-attackers  mass  under 
cover  and  then  run  down  to  surprise  the  attack- 
ers by  manning  the  cuttings  and  embankments. 

Sigel's  Germans,  supported  by  the  splendid  Penn- 
sylvanians  under  Reynolds,  advanced  from  the 
Henry  Hill  to  hold  Jackson  till  Pope  could  come 
up  and  finish  him.  The  numbers  were  about  even, 
with  slight  odds  in  favor  of  Jackson.  But  the  shock 
was  delivered  piecemeal.  Each  part  was  roughly 
handled  and  driven  back  in  disorder.    And  by  the 


238        CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

time  Reynolds  had  come  to  the  front  Lee's  ad- 
vanced guard  was  arriving.  Then  eighteen  thou- 
sand Federals  marched  in  from  Centreville  under 
Reno,  Kearny,  and  "fighting  Joe  Hooker,"  of 
whom  we  shall  hear  again.  Pope  came  up  in  per- 
son with  the  rest  of  his  available  command,  rode 
along  his  line,  and  explained  the  situation  as  found- 
ed on  his  ignorance  and  colored  by  his  fancy.  At 
this  very  moment  Longstreet  came  up  on  Jackson's 
right.  Reynolds  went  into  action  against  what  he 
thought  was  Jackson's  extended  right  but  what 
was  really  Longstreet's  left.  Meanwhile  the  Cen- 
treville troops  attacked  near  Bull  Run.  But  that 
dashing  commander,  Philip  Kearny,  was  held  up 
by  Jackson's  concentrated  guns;  so  Hooker  and 
Reno  advanced  alone,  straight  for  the  railroad  line. 
The  Confederates  behind  it  poured  in  a  tremendous 
hail  of  bullets,  and  the  long  dry  grass  caught  fire. 
But  nothing  stopped  Hooker  till  bayonets  were 
crossed  on  the  rails  and  the  Confederate  line  was 
broken.  Then  the  Confederate  reserves  charged 
in  and  drove  the  Federals  back.  No  sooner  was 
this  seen  than,  with  a  burst  of  cheering,  another 
blue  line  surged  forward.  Again  the  Confederate 
front  was  broken,  but  again  their  reserves  drove 
back  the  Federals.   And  so  the  fight  went  on,  with 


LEE  AND  JACKSON:  1862-3 

stroke  and  count erstroke,  till,  at  a  quarter  past  five, 
twelve  hours  after  Pope's  first  men  had  started 
from  the  Henry  Hill,  his  thirty  thousand  attackers 
found  themselves  unable  to  break  through. 

Pope  wished  to  make  one  more  effort  to  round 
up  Jackson's  supposedly  open  right.  But  Porter 
quite  properly  sent  back  word  that  it  was  far  too 
strong  for  his  own  ten  thousand.  In  reply  Pope 
angrily  ordered  an  immediate  attack.  But  it  was 
now  too  dark,  and  the  battle  ended  for  the  day. 

Strangely  enough,  Lee  was  also  having  trouble 
with  his  subordinate  on  the  same  flank  at  the  same 
time,  but  with  this  difference,  that  Porter  was  right 
while  Longstreet  was  wrong.  Lee  saw  his  chance 
of  rolling  up  Pope's  left  and  ordered  Longstreet  to 
do  it.  But,  after  reconnoitering  the  ground.  Long- 
street  came  back  to  say  the  chance  was  "not  in- 
viting." Again  Lee  ordered  an  attack.  But 
Longstreet  wasted  time,  looking  for  needlessly 
favorable  ground  till  long  after  dark.  Meanwhile 
the  Federals  were  also  feeling  their  way  forward 
over  the  same  ground  to  get  into  a  good  flanking 
position  for  next  day's  battle.  So  the  two  sides 
met;  and  it  was  past  midnight  when  Longstreet 
settled  down.  Lee  wanted  a  sword  thrust.  Long- 
street  gave  a  pin  prick.    We  shall  meet  Longstreet 


240        CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

again,  in  the  same  character  of  obstructive  sub- 
ordinate, at  Gettysburg,  But  he  was,  for  the  most 
part,  a  very  good  officer  indeed;  and  the  South, 
with  its  scanty  supply  of  trained  leaders,  could  not 
afford  to  make  changes  like  the  North.  The  fault, 
too,  was  partly  Lee's;  for  his  one  weak  point  with 
good  but  waj^ward  subordinates  was  a  tendency 
to  let  his  sensitive  consideration  for  their  feelings 
overcome  his  sterner  insight  into  their  defects. 

At  noon  on  the  fatal  thirtieth  of  August,  Pope, 
self-deluded  and  self-sufficient  as  before,  dismayed 
his  best  officers  by  ordering  his  sixty-five  thousand 
men  to  be  "immediately  thrown  forward  in  pursuit 
of  the  enemy, "  whose  own  fifty  thousand  were  now 
far  readier  than  on  the  previous  day. 

Then  the  dense  blue  masses  marched  to  their 
doom.  Twenty  thousand  bayonets  shone  together 
from  Groveton  to  Bull  Run.  Forty  thousand  more 
supported  them  on  the  slopes  in  rear,  while  every 
Federal  gun  thundered  forth  protectingly  from  the 
heights  behind.  The  Confederate  batteries  were 
pointed  out  as  the  objective  of  attack.  Not  one 
glint  of  steel  appeared  between  these  batteries  and 
the  glittering  Federal  host.  To  the  men  in  the  ranks 
and  to  Pope  himself  victory  seemed  assured.  But 
no  sooner  had  that  brave  array  come  within  rifle 


LEE  AND  JACKSON:  1862-3  241 

range  of  the  deserted  railroad  line  than,  high  and 
clear,  the  Confederate  bugles  called  along  the  hid- 
den edges  of  the  flat-topped  Ridge;  when  instantly 
the  great  gray  host  broke  cover,  ran  forward  as 
one  man,  and  held  the  whole  embankment  with  a 
line  of  fire  and  steel. 

A  shock  of  sheer  amazement  ran  through  the 
Federal  mass.  Then,  knightly  as  any  hero  of  ro- 
mance, a  mounted  officer  rode  out  alone,  in  front 
of  the  center,  and,  with  his  sword  held  high,  con- 
tinued leading  the  advance,  which  itself  went 
on  undaunted.  The  Confederate  flank  batteries 
crossed  their  fii-e  on  this  devoted  center.  Bayonets 
flashed  out  of  line  in  hundreds  as  theu*  owners 
fell.  Colors  were  cut  down,  raised  high,  cut  down 
again.  But  still  that  gallant  horse  and  man  went 
on,  unswerving  and  untouched.  Even  the  sweep- 
ing volleys  spared  them  both,  though  now,  as 
the  Federals  closed,  these  volleys  cut  down  more 
men  than  the  cross-fire  of  the  guns.  At  last 
the  unscathed  hero  waved  his  sword  and  rode 
straight  up  the  deadly  embankment,  followed 
by  the  charging  line.  "Don't  kill  him!  Don't 
kill  him!"  shouted  the  admiring  Confederates  as 
his  splendid  figm*e  stood,  one  glorious  moment, 
on  the  top.    The  next,  both  horse  and  man  sank 

i6 


242        CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

wounded,  and  were  at  once  put  under  cover  by 
their  generous  foes. 

For  thirty-five  dire  minutes  the  fight  raged  face 
to  face.  One  Federal  color  rose,  fell,  and  rose 
again  as  fast  as  living  hands  could  take  it  from  the 
dead.  Over  a  hundred  men  lay  round  it  when  the 
few  survivors  drew  back  to  re-form.  Pope  fed  his 
front  line  with  reserves,  who  advanced  with  the 
same  undaunted  gallantry,  but  also  with  the  same 
result.  As  if  to  make  this  same  result  more  sure 
he  never  tried  to  win  by  one  combined  assault, 
wave  after  crashing  wave,  without  allowing  the  de- 
fense to  get  its  second  wind;  but  let  each  unit  taste 
defeat  before  the  next  came  on.  Federal  bravery 
remained.  But  Federal  morale  was  rapidly  disinte- 
grating under  the  palpable  errors  of  Pope.  Mis- 
guided, misled,  and  mishandled,  the  blue  lines  still 
fought  on  till  four,  by  which  time  every  corps, 
division,  and  brigade  had  failed  entirely. 

Then,  at  the  perfect  moment  and  in  the  perfect 
way,  Lee's  counterstroke  was  made:  the  beaten 
Federals  being  assailed  in  flank  as  well  as  front  by 
every  sword,  gun,  bayonet,  and  bullet  that  could 
possibly  be  brought  to  bear.  Only  the  batteries 
remained  on  the  ridge,  firing  furiously  till  the  Fed- 
erals were  driven  out  of  range.     The  infantry  and 


LEE  AND  JACKSON:  1862-3  243 

cavalry  were  sent  in  —  wave  after  wave  of  them, 
without  respite,  till  the  last  had  hurled  destruction 
on  the  foe. 

As  at  the  First  Bull  Run,  so  here,  the  regulars 
fell  back  in  good  order,  fighting  to  the  very  end. 
But  the  rest  of  Pope's  Army  of  Virginia  was  no 
longer  an  organized  unit.  Even  strong  reinforce- 
ments could  do  nothing  for  it  now.  On  the  second 
of  September,  three  days  after  the  battle,  its  ar- 
rival at  Washington,  heralded  by  thousands  of 
weary  stragglers,  threw  the  whole  Union  into  gloom. 

The  first  counter-invasion  naturally  followed. 
Southern  hopes  ran  high.  Bragg's  invasion  of  Ken- 
tucky seemed  to  be  succeeding  at  this  time.  The 
trans-Mississippi  line  still  held  at  Vicksburg  and 
Port  Hudson.  Richmond  had  been  saved.  Wash- 
ington was  menaced.  And  most  people  on  both 
sides  thought  so  much  more  of  the  land  than  of  the 
sea  that  the  Federal  victories  along  the  coast  and 
up  the  Mississippi  were  half  forgotten  for  the  time 
being;  and  so  was  the  strangling  blockade.  Lee, 
of  course,  saw  the  situation  as  a  whole;  and,  as  a 
whole,  it  was  far  from  bright.  But  though  the 
counter-invasion  was  now  a  year  too  late  it  seemed 
worth  making.     Maryland  was  full  of  Southern 


244        CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

sympathizers;  and  campaigning  there  would  give 
Virginia  a  chance  to  recuperate,  while  also  prevent- 
ing the  North  from  recovering  too  quickly  from 
its  last  reverse.  Thus  it  was  with  great  expecta- 
tions that  the  Confederates  crossed  the  Potomac 
singing  Maryland,  my  Maryland! 

But  Maryland  did  not  respond  to  this  appeal. 
The  women,  it  is  true,  were  mostly  Southern  to 
the  core  and  ready  to  serve  the  Confederate  cause 
in  every  way  they  could.  But  the  men,  reflecting 
more,  knew  they  were  in  the  grip  of  Northern  sea- 
power.  Nor  could  they  fail  to  notice  the  vast 
difference  between  the  warlike  resources  of  the 
North  and  South.  Northern  armies  had  been 
marching  through  for  many  months,  well  fed,  well 
armed,  and  superabundantly  supplied.  The  Con- 
federates, on  the  other  hand,  were  fewer  in  num- 
bers, half  starved,  in  ragged  clothing,  less  well 
armed,  and  far  less  abundantly  supplied  in  every 
way.  A  Northerner  who  fell  sick  could  generally 
count  on  the  best  of  medical  care,  not  to  mention  a 
profusion  of  medical  comforts.  But  the  blockade 
kept  medicines  and  surgical  instruments  out  of  the 
Southern  ports;  and  the  South  could  make  few  of 
her  own.  So,  to  be  very  sick  or  badly  wounded 
meant  almost  a  sentence  of  death  in  the  South. 


LEE  AND  JACKSON:  1862-3  245 

Eighteen  months  of  war  had  disillusioned  Mary- 
land.    The  expected  reinforcements  never  came. 

Lee  had  again  divided  his  army  in  the  hope  of 
snatching  victory  by  means  of  better  strategy.  On 
the  thirteenth  of  September  Jackson  was  bombard- 
ing the  Federals  at  Harper's  Ferry,  Longstreet  was 
at  Hagerstown,  and  Stuart  was  holding  the  gaps  of 
South  Mountain. 

The  same  day  McClellan,  whose  whole  army 
was  at  Frederick,  received  a  copy  of  Lee's  orders. 
They  had  been  wrapped  round  three  cigars  and 
lost  by  a  careless  Confederate  staff  officer.  Had 
McClellan  forced  the  gaps  immediately,  maneu- 
vered with  reasonable  skill,  and  struck  home  with 
every  available  man,  he  might  have  annihilated 
Lee.  But  he  let  the  thirteenth  pass  quietly;  and 
when  he  did  take  the  passes  on  the  fourteenth  it 
cost  him  a  good  deal,  as  the  Confederate  infantry 
had  reinforced  Stuart.  On  the  fifteenth  Jackson 
took  Harper's  Ferry.  On  the  sixteenth  he  joined 
Lee  at  Antietam.  And  on  the  seventeenth,  when 
the  remaining  availables  had  also  joined  Lee,  Mc- 
Clellan made  up  his  mind  to  attack.  "Ask  me  for 
anything  but  time,"  said  the  real  Napoleon.  The 
"Young  Napoleon"  did  not  even  need  the  asking. 

Antietam  (so  called  from  the  Antietam  Creek)  or 


246        CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

Sharpsbui'g  (so  called  from  the  Confederate  head- 
quarters there)  was  one  of  the  biggest  battles  of  the 
Civil  War;  and  it  might  possibly  have  been  the 
most  momentous.  But,  as  things  turned  out,  it 
was  in  itself  an  indecisive  action,  spoilt  for  the 
Federals,  first,  by  McClellan's  hesitating  strategy, 
and  then  by  his  failure  to  press  the  attack  home  at 
all  costs,  with  every  available  man,  in  an  unbroken 
succession  of  assaults.  He  had  over  80,000  men 
with  275  guns  against  barely  40,000  with  194  guns 
of  inferior  strength.  But  though  the  Federals 
fought  with  magnificent  devotion,  and  though  the 
losses  were  very  serious  on  both  sides,  the  tactical 
result  was  a  mutual  checkmate.  The  strategic  re- 
sult, however,  was  a  Confederate  defeat;  for,  with 
his  few  worn  veterans,  Lee  had  no  chance  what- 
ever of  keeping  his  precarious  hold  on  a  neutral 
Maryland. 

October  was  a  quiet  month,  each  side  reorganiz- 
ing without  much  interference  from  the  other,  ex- 
cept for  Stuart's  second  raid  round  the  whole  em- 
battled army  of  McClellan.  This  time  Stuart  took 
nearly  two  thousand  men  and  four  horse  artillery 
guns.  Crossing  the  Potomac  at  McCoy's  Ford  on 
the  tenth  he  reached  Chambersburg  that  night, 
destroyed  the  Federal  stores,  took  all  the  prisoners 


LEE  AND  JACKSON:  1862-3  247 

he  wanted,  cut  the  wires,  obstructed  the  rails,  and 
went  on  with  hundreds  of  Federal  horses.  Next 
day  he  circled  the  Federal  rear  toward  Gettysburg, 
turned  south  through  Emmitsburg,  and  crossed 
McClellan's  line  of  communications  with  Washing- 
ton at  Hyattstown  early  on  the  twelfth.  By  this 
time  the  Federal  cavalry  were  riding  themselves 
to  exhaustion  in  vain  pursuit;  while  many  other 
forces  were  trying  to  close  in  and  cut  him  off.  But 
he  reached  the  mouth  of  the  Monocacy  and  crossed 
White's  Ford  in  safety,  fighting  off  all  interference. 
The  information  he  brought  back  was  of  priceless 
value.  Lee  now  learned  that  McClellan  was  not 
falling  back  on  Washington  but  being  reinforced 
from  there,  and  that  consequently  no  new  Penin- 
sula Campaign  was  to  be  feared  at  present.  This 
alone  was  worth  the  effort,  risk,  and  negligible  loss. 
Stuart  had  marched  a  hundred  and  twenty-six 
miles  on  the  Federal  side  of  the  Potomac  —  eighty 
of  them  without  a  single  halt;  and  he  had  been 
fifty-six  hours  inside  the  Federal  lines,  mostly 
within  four  riding  hours  of  McClellan's  own 
headquarters. 

This  second  stinging  raid  roused  the  loyal  North 
to  fury;  and  by  November  a  new  invasion  of  Vir- 
ginia was  in  full  swing  on  the  old  ground,  with 


248        CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

McClellan  at  Warrenton,  Lee  at  Culpeper,  and 
Jackson  in  the  Valley. 

But  McClellan's  own  last  chance  had  gone. 
Late  at  night  on  the  seventh  he  was  sitting  alone  in 
his  tent,  writing  to  his  wife,  when  Burnside  asked 
if  he  could  come  in  with  General  C.  P.  Bucking- 
ham, the  confidential  staff  officer  to  the  War  De- 
partment. After  some  forced  conversation  Buck- 
ingham handed  McClellan  a  paper  ordering  his 
supersession  by  Burnside.  McClellan  simply  said: 
"Well,  Burnside,  I  turn  the  command  over  to 
you."  The  eighth  and  ninth  were  spent  in  handing 
over;  and  on  the  tenth  McClellan  made  his  official 
farewell.  Next  day  he  was  entraining  at  Warren- 
ton Junction  when  the  men,  among  whom  he  was 
immensely  popular,  broke  ranks  and  swarmed 
round  his  car,  cursing  the  Government  and  swear- 
ing they  would  follow  no  one  but  their  "Old  Com- 
mander." McClellan,  with  all  his  faults  in  the 
field,  was  a  good  organizer,  an  extremely  able  en- 
gineer, a  very  brave  soldier,  a  very  sympathetic 
comrade  in  arms,  and  a  regular  father  to  his  men, 
whose  personal  interests  were  always  his  first  care. 
The  moment  was  critical.  McClellan,  had  he 
chosen,  might  have  imitated  the  Roman  generals 
who  led  the  revolts  of  Praetorian  Guards.    But  he 


LEE  AND  JACKSON:  1862-3  249 

stepped  out  on  the  front  platform  of  the  car,  held 
up  his  hand,  and,  amid  tense  silence,  asked  the 
men  to  *' stand  by  General  Burnside  as  you  have 
stood  by  me."  The  car  they  had  uncoupled  to 
prevent  his  departure  was  run  up  and  coupled 
again;  and  then,  amid  cheers  of  mournful  farewell, 
they  let  him  go. 

General  Ambrose  E.  Burnside  was  expected  to 
smash  Lee,  take  Richmond,  and  end  the  war  at 
once.  He  was  a  good  subordinate,  but  quite  unfit 
for  supreme  command,  which  he  accepted  only  un- 
der protest.  Moreover,  he  was  not  supported  as 
he  should  have  been  by  the  War  Department,  nor 
even  by  the  Headquarter  Stajff.  While  changing 
his  position  from  Warrenton  to  Fredericksburg  he 
was  hampered  by  avoidable  delays.  So  when  he 
reached  Falmouth  he  found  Lee  had  forestalled  him 
on  the  opposing  heights  of  Fredericksburg  itself. 

The  disastrous  thirteenth  of  December  was  dull, 
calm,  and  misty.  But  presently  the  sun  shone 
down  with  unwonted  warmth;  the  mists  rolled  up 
like  curtains;  and  there  stood  200,000  men,  arrayed 
in  order  of  battle:  80,000  Confederates  awaiting 
the  onslaught  of  120,000  Federals. 

On  came  the  solid  masses  of  the  Federals,  eighty 
thousand  strong,  with  forty  in  support,  amid  the 


250        CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

thunder  of  five  hundred  attacking  and  defending 
guns.  The  sunhght  played  upon  the  rising  tide  of 
Federal  bayonets  as  on  sea  currents  when  they 
turn  inshore.  The  colors  waved  proudly  as  ever; 
and  to  the  outward  eye  the  attack  seemed  almost 
strong  enough  to  drive  the  stern  and  silent  gray 
Confederates  clear  off  the  crest.  But  the  indis- 
pensable morale  was  wanting.  For  this  was  the 
end  of  a  long  campaign,  full  of  drawn  battles  and 
terrible  defeats.  Burnside  was  an  unpopular  sub- 
stitute for  McClellan;  he  was  not  in  any  way  a 
great  commander;  and  he  was  acting  under  pres- 
sure against  his  own  best  judgment.  His  army 
knew  or  felt  all  this;  and  he  knew  they  knew  or  felt 
it.  The  Federals,  for  all  their  glorious  courage, 
felt,  when  the  two  fronts  met  at  Fredericksburg, 
that  they  were  no  more  than  sacrificial  pawns  in 
the  grim  game  of  war.  After  much  useless  slaugh- 
ter they  reeled  back  beaten.  But  they  could  and 
did  retire  in  safety,  skillfully  "staffed"  by  their 
leaders  and  close  to  their  unconquerable  sea. 

Lee  could  make  no  counterstroke.  The  Con- 
federate Government  had  not  dared  to  let  him 
occupy  the  far  better  position  on  the  line  of  the 
North  Anna,  from  which  a  vigorous  counterstroke 
might  have  almost  annihilated  a  beaten  attacker, 


LEE  AND  JACKSON:  1862-3  251 

who  would  have  been  exposed  on  both  flanks, 
beyond  the  sure  protection  of  the  sea.  Thus  fear 
of  an  outcry  against  "abandoning"  the  country  be- 
tween Fredericksburg  and  the  North  Anna  caused 
the  Southern  politicians  to  lose  their  chance  at 
home.  But  without  a  decisive  victory  they  could 
not  hope  for  foreign  intervention.  So  losing  their 
chance  at  home  made  them  lose  it  abroad  as  well. 
Burnside  was  dazed  by  his  defeat  and  the  appall- 
ing loss  of  life  in  vain.  But  after  five  weeks  of 
most  discouraging  inaction  he  tried  to  surprise 
Lee  by  crossing  the  Rappahannock  several  miles 
higher  up.  On  the  twentieth  and  twenty-first  of 
that  miserable  January  the  Federal  army  ploughed 
its  dreary  way  through  sloughs  of  gluey  mud  under 
torrents  of  chilling  rain.  Then,  when  the  pace  had 
slackened  to  a  funereal  crawl,  and  the  absurd- 
ly little  chance  of  surprising  Lee  had  vanished 
altogether,  this  despairing  "Mud  March"  came 
to  its  wretched  end.  Four  days  later  Burnside 
was  superseded  by  one  of  his  own  subordinates, 
General  Joseph  Hooker,  known  to  all  ranks  as 
"Fighting  Joe  Hooker." 

Fredericksburg,  the  spell  of  relaxing  winter  quar- 
ters beside  the  fatal  Rappahannock,  and  then 


252        CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

the  fatal  "Mud  March,"  combined  to  lower  Fed- 
eral morale.  Yet  the  mass  of  the  men,  being  com- 
posed of  fine  human  material,  quickly  recovered 
under  "Fighting  Joe  Hooker,"  who  knew  what 
discipline  meant.  Numbers  and  discipline  tell. 
But  disciplined  numbers  were  not  the  only  or  even 
the  greatest  menace  to  the  South.  For  here,  as 
farther  west,  the  Confederate  Government  was 
beginning  to  be  foolish  just  as  the  Federal  Govern- 
ment showed  signs  of  growing  wise.  Lincoln  and 
Stanton  were  giving  Joe  Hooker  a  fairly  free  hand 
just  when  Davis  and  Seddon  (his  makeshift  minis- 
ter of  war)  were  using  Confederate  forces  as  pup- 
pets to  be  pulled  about  by  Cabinet  strings  from 
Richmond.  Here  again  (as  later  on  at  Chatta- 
nooga) Longstreet  was  sent  away  on  a  useless 
errand  just  when  he  was  needed  most  by  Lee. 
Good  soldier  though  he  v/as  in  many  ways  he  was 
no  such  man  as  Stonewall  Jackson;  and,  in  this  one 
year,  he  failed  his  seniors  thrice. 

It  is  true  enough  that  the  April  situation  of  1863 
might  well  shake  governmental  nerves;  for  Rich- 
mond was  being  menaced  from  three  points  — 
north,  southeast,  and  south:  Fredericksburg  due 
north,  Suffolk  southeast,  Newbern  south.  New- 
bern  in  North  Carohna  was  a  long  way  off.    But  its 


LEE  AND  JACKSON:  1862-3  253 

possession  by  an  active  enemy  threatened  the  rail 
connection  from  Richmond  south  to  Wihnington, 
Charleston,  and  Savannah,  the  only  three  Atlantic 
ports  through  which  the  South  could  get  supplies 
from  overseas.  SuflFolk  was  nearer.  It  covered  the 
landward  side  of  Norfolk,  which,  with  Fortress 
Monroe,  might  become  the  base  of  a  new  Penin- 
sula Campaign.  But  Fredericksburg  was  near- 
est; nearest  to  Richmond,  nearest  to  Washington, 
nearest  to  the  main  Southern  force;  and  not  only 
nearest  but  strongest,  in  every  way  strongest  and 
most  to  be  feared.  "Fighting  Joe  Hooker"  was 
there,  with  a  hundred  and  thirty  thousand  men, 
already  stirring  for  the  spring  campaign  that  was  to 
wipe  out  memories  of  Fredericksburg,  make  short 
work  of  Lee,  and  end  the  war  at  Richmond. 

Yet  Longstreet  cheerfully  marched  off,  pleased 
with  his  new  command,  to  see  what  he  could  do  to 
soothe  the  Government  by  winning  laurels  for  him- 
self at  Suffolk.  On  the  seventeenth,  just  two  weeks 
before  the  supreme  test  came  on  Lee's  weakened 
army  at  Chancellorsville,  Longstreet  reported  to 
Seddon  that  Suffolk  would  cost  three  thousand 
men,  if  taken  by  assault,  or  three  days'  heavy  firing 
if  subdued  by  bombardment.  Shrinking  from  such 
expenditure  of  life  or  ammunition,  Davis,  Seddon, 


254        CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

and  Longstreet  fell  back  on  a  siege,  which,  prevent- 
ing all  junction  with  Lee,  might  well  have  cost  the 
ruin  of  their  cause. 

Lee  and  Jackson  then  prepared  to  make  the  best 
of  a  bad  business  along  the  Rappahannock,  and  to 
snatch  victory  once  more,  if  possible,  from  the  very 
jaws  of  death.  The  prospect  was  grimmer  than 
before.  Hooker  was  a  better  fighter  than  McClel- 
lan  and  wiser  than  Burnside  or  Pope.  Moreover, 
after  two  years  of  war,  the  Union  Government  had 
at  last  found  out  that  civilian  detectives  knew  less 
about  armies  than  expert  staff  oflScers  know,  and 
that  cavalry  which  was  something  more  than  mere 
men  on  horses  could  collect  a  little  information  too. 
Hooker  knew  Lee's  strength  as  well  as  his  own. 
So  he  decided  to  hold  Lee  fast  with  one  part  of 
the  big  Federal  army,  turn  his  flank  with  another, 
and  cut  his  line  of  supply  and  retreat  with  Stone- 
man's  ten  thousand  sabers  as  well.  The  respective 
grand  totals  were  130,000  Federals  against  62,000 
Confederates. 

So  far,  so  good ;  so  very  good  indeed  that  Hooker 
and  his  staff  were  as  nearly  free  from  care  on  May 
Day  as  headquarter  men  can  ever  be  in  the  midst 
of  vital  operations.  Hooker  had  just  reason  to  be 
proud  of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac  and  of  his  own 


LEE  AND  JACKSON:  1862-3  255 

work  in  reviving  it.  He  had,  indeed,  issued  one 
bombastic  order  of  the  day  in  which  he  called  it 
"the  finest  on  the  planet."  But  even  this  might 
be  excused  in  view  of  the  popular  call  for  encour- 
aging words.  What  was  more  to  the  point  was 
the  reestabhshment  of  Federal  morale,  which  had 
been  terribly  shaken  after  the  great  Mud  March. 
Hooker's  sworn  evidence  (as  given  in  the  official 
Report  of  Committee  on  the  Conduct  of  the  War) 
speaks  for  itself:  "The  moment  I  was  placed  in 
command  I  caused  a  return  to  be  made  of  the  ab- 
sentees of  the  army,  and  found  the  number  to  be 
2922  commissioned  officers  and  81,964  non-com- 
missioned officers  and  privates.  They  were  scat- 
tered all  over  the  country,  and  the  majority  were 
absent  from  causes  unknown." 

On  the  twenty-eighth  of  April  Stuart  saw  the  re- 
disciplined  Federals  in  motion  far  up  the.  Rappa- 
hannock, while  next  day  Jackson  saw  others  laying 
pontoons  thirty  miles  lower  down,  just  on  the  sea- 
ward side  of  Fredericksburg.  Lee  took  this  news 
with  genial  calm,  remarking  to  the  aide:  "Well,  I 
heard  firing  and  was  beginning  to  think  it  was  time 
some  of  your  lazy  young  fellows  were  coming  to  tell 
me  what  it  was  about.  Tell  your  good  general  he 
knows  what  to  do  with  the  enemy  just  as  well  as  I 


256        CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

do."  On  the  thirtieth  it  became  quite  clear  that 
Hooker  was  bent  on  turning  Lee's  left  and  that  he 
had  divided  his  army  to  do  so.  Jackson  wished  to 
attack  Sedgwick's  35,000  Federals  still  on  the  plains 
of  Fredericksburg.  But  Lee  convinced  him  that 
the  better  way  would  be  to  hold  these  men  with 
10,000  Confederates  in  the  fortified  position  on  the 
confronting  heights  while  the  remaining  52,000 
should  try  to  catch  Hooker  himself  between  the  jaws 
of  a  trap  in  the  forest  round  Chancellorsville,  where 
the  Federal  masses  would  be  far  more  likely  to  get 
out  of  hand.  It  was  an  extremely  daring  maneuver 
to  be  setting  this  trap  when  Sedgwick  had  enough 
men  to  storm  the  heights  of  Fredericksburg,  when 
Stoneman  was  on  the  line  of  communication  with 
the  south,  and  when  Hooker  himself,  with  superior 
numbers,  was  gaining  Lee's  rear.  But  Lee  had 
Jackson  as  his  lieutenant,  not  Longstreet,  as  he 
was  to  have  at  Gettysburg. 

Hooker's  movements  were  rapid,  well  arranged, 
and  admirably  executed  up  to  the  evening  of  the 
first  of  May,  when,  finding  those  of  the  enemy  very 
puzzling  among  the  dense  woods,  he  chose  the 
worst  of  three  alternatives.  The  first  and  best,  an 
immediate  counter-attack,  would  have  kept  up  his 
army's  morale  and,  if  well  executed,  revealed  his 


LEE  AND  JACKSON:  1862-3  257 

own  greater  strength.  The  second,  a  continued 
advance  till  he  reached  clearer  ground,  might  have 
succeeded  or  not.  The  third  and  worst  was  to 
stand  on  his  defense,  a  plan  which,  however  sound 
in  other  places,  was  fatal  here,  because  it  not  only- 
depressed  the  spirits  of  his  army  but  gave  two  men 
of  genius  the  initiative  against  him  in  a  country 
where  they  were  at  home  and  he  was  not.  The 
absence  of  ten  thousand  cavalry  baffled  his  efforts 
to  get  trustworthy  information  on  the  ground, 
while  the  dense  woods  baffled  his  balloons  from 
above.  On  the  second  of  May  he  still  thought  the 
initiative  was  his,  that  the  Confederates  were  re- 
treating, and  that  his  own  jaws  were  closing  on 
them  instead  of  theirs  on  him. 

Meanwhile,  owing  to  miscalculations  of  the  space 
that  had  to  be  held  in  force,  Iiis  right  was  not  only 
thrown  forward  too  far  but  presented  a  flank  in  the 
air.  This  was  the  flank  round  which  Stonewall  Jack- 
son maneuvered  with  such  consummate  skill  that  it 
was  taken  on  three  sides  and  rolled  up  in  fatal  con- 
fusion. Its  commander,  the  very  capable  General 
O.  O.  Howard,  who  perceived  the  mistake  he  could 
not  correct,  tried  hard  to  stay  the  rout.  But,  as  his 
whole  reserve  had  been  withdrawn  by  Hooker  to  join 
an  attack  elsewhere,  his  lines  simply  melted  away. 


258        CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

The  three  days'  battle  that  followed  (ending  on 
the  fifth  of  May)  was  bravely  fought  by  the  be- 
wildered Federals.  Yet  all  in  vain.  Hooker  was 
caught  like  a  bull  in  a  net;  and  the  more  he  strug- 
gled the  worse  it  became.  At  6  p.m.  on  the  second 
the  cunning  trap  was  sprung  when  a  single  Con- 
federate bugle  rang  out.  Instantly  other  bugles 
repeated  the  call  at  regular  intervals  through  miles 
of  forest.  Then,  high  and  clear  on  the  silent  air  of 
that  calm  May  evening,  the  rebel  yell  rose  like 
the  baying  of  innumerable  hounds,  hot  on  the  scent 
of  their  quarry,  with  Jackson  leading  on.  Noth- 
ing could  stop  the  eager  gray  lines,  wave  after 
wave  of  them  pressing  through  the  woods;  not  even 
the  gallant  fifty  guns  that  fought  with  despera- 
tion in  defense  of  Hazel  Grove,  where  Hooker  was 
rallying  his  men. 

For  two  days  more  the  tide  of  battle  ebbed  and 
flowed;  but  always  against  the  Federals  in  the  end, 
till,  broken,  bewildered,  and  disheartened,  they 
retired  as  best  they  could.  Lee  was  unable  to 
pursue.  Longstreet's  men  were  still  missing;  and 
so  were  many  supplies  that  should  have  been  for- 
warded from  Richmond.  There  the  Government 
clung  to  the  fond  belief  that  this  mere  victory  had 
won  the  war,  and  that  pursuit  was  useless.    Thus 


LEE  AND  JACKSON:  1862-3  259 

Lee's  last  chance  of  crushing  the  invaders  was 
taken  from  him  by  his  friends. 

At  the  same  time  the  Southern  cause  suffered 
another  irreparable  loss;  but  in  this  case  at  the 
purely  accidental  hands  of  Southern  men.  Jack- 
son's staff,  suddenly  emerging  from  a  thicket  as 
the  first  night  closed  in,  was  mistaken  for  Feder- 
al cavalry  and  shot  down.  Jackson  himself  was 
badly  wounded  in  three  places  and  carried  from  the 
field.  He  never  heard  the  rebel  yell  again.  Next 
Sunday,  when  the  staff-surgeon  told  him  that  he 
could  not  possibly  live  through  the  night,  he  simply 
answered:  "Very  good,  very  good;  it  is  all  right." 
Presently  he  asked  Major  Pendleton  what  chap- 
lain was  preaching  at  headquarters.  "Mr.  Lacy, 
sir;  and  the  whole  army  is  praying  for  you." 
"Thank  God,"  said  Jackson,  "they  are  very  kind 
to  me."  A  little  later,  rousing  himself  as  if  from 
sleep,  he  called  out:  "Order  A.  P.  Hill  to  prepare 
for  action!  Pass  the  infantry  to  the  front!  Tell 
Major  Hawks  —  "  There  his  strength  failed  him. 
But  after  a  pause  he  said  quietly,  "Let  us  cross 
over  the  river  and  rest  under  the  shade  of  the 
trees."    And  with  these  words  he  died. 


CHAPTER  VII 

GRANT   WINS   THE   RIVER   WAR  I   1863 

We  have  seen  already  how  the  River  War  of  '62 
ended  in  a  double  failure  of  the  Federal  advance  on 
Vicksburg :  how  Grant  and  Sherman,  aided  by  the 
flanking  force  from  Helena  in  Arkansas,  failed  to 
catch  Pemberton  along  the  Tallahatchie;  and  then 
how  Sherman  alone,  moving  down  the  Mississippi, 
was  defeated  by  Pemberton  at  Chickasaw  Bayou, 
just  outside  of  Vicksburg. 

Leaving  Memphis  for  good.  Grant  took  com- 
mand in  the  field  again  on  the  thirtieth  of  January. 
His  army  was  strung  out  along  seventy  miles  of 
the  Mississippi  just  north  of  Vicksburg,  so  hard  was 
it  to  find  enough  firm  ground.  The  first  impor- 
tant move  was  made  when,  in  Grant's  own  words, 
"the  entire  Army  of  the  Tennessee  was  transferred 
to  the  neighborhood  of  Vicksburg  and  landed  on 
the  opposite  or  western  bank  of  the  river  at 
Milliken's  Bend." 

260 


GRANT  WINS  THE  RIVER  WAR        261 

Grant,  everywhere  in  touch  with  Admiral  D.  D. 
Porter's  fleet  and  plentifully  supplied  with  water 
transport  of  all  kinds,  thus  commanded  the  penin- 
sula or  tongue  of  low  land  round  which  the  mighty 
river  took  its  course  in  the  form  of  an  elongated 
U  right  opposite  Vicksburg.  His  farthest  north 
base  was  still  at  Cairo;  and  the  whole  line  of  the 
Mississippi  above  him  was  effectively  held  by 
Union  forces  afloat  and  ashore.  Four  hundred 
miles  south  lay  Farragut  and  Banks,  preparing  for 
an  attack  on  Port  Hudson  and  intent  on  making 
junction  with  the  Union  forces  above. 

Two  bad  generals  stood  very  much  in  Grant's 
way,  one  on  either  side  of  him  in  rank  —  McCler- 
nand,  his  own  second-in-command,  and  Banks,  his 
only  senior  in  the  Mississippi  area.  McClernand 
presently  found  rope  enough  to  hang  himself.  Our 
old  friend  Banks,  who  had  not  yet  learnt  the  ele- 
ments of  war,  though  schooled  by  Stonewall  Jack- 
son, never  got  beyond  Port  Hudson,  and  so  could 
not  spoil  Grant's  command  in  addition  to  his  own. 
Fortunately,  besides  Sherman  and  other  profes- 
sional soldiers  of  quite  exceptional  ability,  Grant 
had  three  of  the  best  generals  who  ever  came  from 
civil  life:  Logan,  Blair,  and  Crocker.  Logan  shed 
all  the  vices,  while  keeping  all  the  virtues,  of  the 


262        CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

lawyer  when  he  took  up  arms.  Blair  knew  how  to 
be  one  man  as  an  ambitious  politician  and  another 
as  a  general  in  the  field.  Crocker  was  in  consump- 
tion, but  determined  to  die  in  his  boots  and  do  his 
military  best  for  the  Union  service  first.  The  per- 
sonnel of  the  army  was  mostly  excellent  all  through. 
The  men  were  both  hardy  and  handy  as  a  rule, 
being  to  a  large  extent  farmers,  teamsters,  railroad 
and  steamboat  men,  well  fitted  to  meet  the  emer- 
gencies of  the  severe  and  intricate  Vicksburg 
campaign. 

Throughout  this  campaign  the  army  and  navy 
of  the  Union  worked  together  as  a  single  amphibi- 
ous force.  Grant's  own  words  are  no  mere  com- 
pliment, but  the  sober  statement  of  a  fact.  "The 
navy,  under  Porter,  was  all  it  could  be  during  the 
entire  campaign.  Without  its  assistance  the  cam- 
paign could  not  have  been  successfully  made  with 
twice  the  number  of  men  engaged.  It  could  not 
have  been  made  at  all,  in  the  way  it  was,  with 
any  number  of  men,  without  such  assistance.  The 
most  perfect  harmony  reigned  between  the  two  arms 
of  the  Service.  There  never  was  a  request  made, 
that  I  am  aware  of,  either  of  the  Flag-Officer  or 
any  of  his  subordinates,  that  was  not  promptly 
complied  with."    And  what  is  true  of  Porter  is  at 


GRANT  WINS  THE  RIVER  WAR        263 

least  as  true  of  Farragut,  who  was  the  greater  man 
and  the  senior  of  every  one  afloat. 

Grant  could  take  Vicksburg  only  by  reaching  good 
ground,  and  the  only  good  ground  was  below  and 
in  rear  of  the  fortress.  There  was  no  foothold  for 
his  army  on  the  east  bank  of  the  Mississippi  any- 
where between  Memphis  and  Vicksburg.  This 
meant  that  he  must  either  start  afresh  from  Mem- 
phis and  try  again  to  push  overland  by  rail  or  cross 
the  swampy  peninsula  in  front  of  him  and  circle 
round  his  enemy.  A  retirement  on  Memphis,  no 
matter  how  wise,  would  look  like  another  great 
Union  defeat  and  consequently  lower  a  public 
morale  which,  depressed  enough  by  Fredericks- 
burg, was  being  kept  down  by  the  constant  naval 
reverses  that  opened  '63.  Circling  the  front  was 
therefore  very  much  to  be  preferred  from  the  poli- 
tical point  of  view.  On  the  other  hand,  it  was  be- 
set by  many  alarming  difliculties;  for  it  meant 
starting  from  the  flooded  Mississippi  and  working 
through  the  waterlogged  lowlands,  across  the 
peninsula,  till  a  foothold  could  be  seized  on  the 
eastern  bank  below  Vicksburg.  Moreover,  this 
circling  attack,  though  feasible,  might  depress  the 
morale  of  the  troops  by  the  way.  Burnside's  dis- 
astrous   "Mud    March"    through    the    January 


264        CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

sloughs  of  Virginia,  made  in  the  vain  hope  of 
out-flanking  Lee,  had  lowered  the  morale  of  the 
army  almost  as  much  as  Fredericksburg  itself  had 
lowered  the  morale  of  the  people. 

Through  the  depth  of  winter  the  army  toiled 
"in  ineffectual  efforts, "  says  Grant,  "to  reach  high 
land  above  Vicksburg  from  which  we  could  operate 
against  that  stronghold,  and  in  making  artificial 
waterways  through  which  a  fleet  might  pass, 
avoiding  the  batteries  to  the  south  of  the  town,  in 
case  the  other  efforts  should  fail."  A  wetter  winter 
had  never  been  known.  The  whole  complicated 
network  of  bends  and  bayous,  of  creeks,  streams, 
runs,  and  tributary  rivers,  was  overflowing  the 
few  slimy  trails  tlirough  the  spongy  forest  and 
threatening  the  neglected  levees  which  still  held 
back  the  encroaching  waters.  There  was  nothing 
to  do,  however,  but  to  keep  the  men  busy  and  the 
enemy  confused  by  trying  first  one  line  and  then 
another  for  two  weary  months.  By  April,  writes 
Grant,  "the  waters  of  the  Mississippi  having  re- 
ceded suflSciently  to  make  it  possible  to  march  an 
army  across  the  peninsula  opposite  Vicksburg,  I 
determined  to  adopt  this  course,  and  moved  my 
advance  to  a  point  below  the  town." 

Meanwhile,  far  below,  Farragut  and  Banks  were 


GRANT  WINS  THE  RIVER  WAR       265 

at  work  round  Port  Hudson :  Farragut  to  good  ef- 
fect; Banks  as  usual.  On  the  fourteenth  of  March 
Farragut  started  up  the  river  with  seven  men-of-war 
and  wanted  the  troops  to  make  a  demonstration 
against  Port  Hudson  from  the  rear  while  the  fleet 
worked  its  way  past  the  front.  But,  just  as  Farragut 
was  weighing  anchor,  Banks,  who  had  had  ample 
time  for  preparation,  sent  word  to  say  he  was  still 
five  miles  from  Port  Hudson.  "He'd  as  well  be  at 
New  Orleans,"  muttered  Farragut,  "for  all  the 
good  he's  doing  us." 

Six  of  the  vessels  were  lashed  together  in  pairs, 
the  heavier  ones  next  the  enemy,  the  lighter  ones  se- 
cured well  aft  so  as  to  mask  the  fewest  guns.  This 
arrangement  also  gave  each  pair  the  advantage 
of  having  twin  screws.  Farragut's  flagship,  the 
Hartford,  leading  the  line-ahead,  suffered  least  from 
the  dense  smoke  on  that  damp,  calm,  moonless 
night.  But  the  others  were  soon  groping  blind- 
ly up  the  tortuous  channel.  The  Hartford  herself 
took  the  ground  for  a  critical  moment.  But,  with 
her  own  screw  going  ahead  and  that  of  the 
Albatross  going  astern,  she  drew  clear  and  won 
through.  Not  so,  however,  the  other  five  ships. 
Only  the  Hartford  and  Albatross  reached  the  Red 
River.    Yet  even  this  was  of  great  importance,  as 


266        CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

it  completely  cut  off  Port  Hudson  from  all  chance 
of  relief.  Farragut  went  on  up  the  Mississippi  to 
see  Grant,  destroying  all  riverside  stores  on  the 
way.  Grant  was  delighted,  and,  in  the  absence  of 
Porter,  who  was  up  the  Yazoo,  sent  Farragut  an 
Ellet  ram  and  some  sorely  needed  coal. 

Grant's  seventh  (and  first  successful)  effort  to 
get  a  foothold  (from  which  to  carry  out  one  of  the 
boldest  and  most  brilliant  operations  recorded  in 
the  history  of  war)  began  with  a  naval  operation 
on  the  sixteenth  of  April,  when  Porter  ran  past  the 
Vicksbmg  batteries  by  night.  Though  Porter  had 
the  four-knot  current  in  his  favor  he  needed  all  his 
skill  and  moral  courage  to  take  a  regular  flotilla 
round  the  elongated  U  made  by  the  Mississippi  at 
Vicksburg,  with  such  a  bend  as  to  keep  vessels 
under  more  or  less  distant  fire  for  five  miles,  and 
under  much  closer  fire  for  nearly  nine.  At  the  bend 
the  vessels  could  be  caught  end-on.  For  nearly 
five  miles  after  that  they  were  subject  to  a  plung- 
ing fire.  Porter  led  the  way  on  board  the  flagship 
Benton.  He  had  seven  ironclads,  of  which  three 
were  larger  vessels  and  four  were  gunboats  built 
by  Eads,  a  naval  constructor  with  orignal  ideas  and 
great  executive  ability.  One  ram  and  three  trans- 
ports followed.    Coal  barges  were  lashed  alongside 


GRANT  WINS  THE  RIVER  WAR       267 

or  taken  in  tow.  Some  of  these  were  lost  and 
one  transport  was  sunk.  But  the  rest  got  through, 
though  not  unscathed.  It  seemed  like  a  miracle 
to  the  tense  spectators  that  any  flotilla  should  sur- 
vive this  dash  down  a  river  of  death  flowing  through 
a  furnace.  But  the  ironclads,  magnificently  han- 
dled, stood  up  to  their  work  unflinchingly,  fired 
back  with  regulated  vigor,  and  took  their  terrific 
pounding  without  one  vital  wound. 

Porter  presently  relieved  Farragut,  who  went 
back  to  New  Orleans.  From  this  time,  till  after  the 
fall  of  Vicksburg  and  Port  Hudson,  Porter  com- 
manded three  flotillas,  each  with  a  base  of  its  own: 
first,  a  flotilla  remaining  north  of  Vicksburg  for 
work  on  the  Yazoo;  secondly,  the  main  body  be- 
tween Vicksburg  and  Grand  Gulf;  thirdly,  the  Red 
River  flotilla.  This  combined  naval  force  com- 
manded all  lines  of  communication  north,  south, 
and  west  of  Vicksburg,  thus  enabling  Grant  to 
concentrate  entirely  against  the  eastern  side. 

On  the  thirtieth  of  April  Grant  landed  with 
twenty  thousand  men  at  Bruinsburg,  on  the  east 
side  of  the  Mississippi,  about  sixty  miles  be- 
low Vicksburg.  A  week  later  Sherman  reinforced 
him  to  thirty-three  thousand.  Before  the  fall  of 
Vicksburg  his  total  strength  reached  seventy-five 


268        CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

thousand.  The  Confederate  total  also  fluctuated; 
but  not  so  much.  There  were  about  sixty  thousand 
Confederates  in  the  whole  strategic  area  between 
Vicksburg  and  Jackson  (fifty  miles  east)  when  Grant 
made  his  first  daring  move,  and  about  the  same 
when  Vicksburg  surrendered.  The  scene  of  action 
was  almost  triangular;  for  it  lay  between  the  three 
lines  joining  Jackson,  Haynes's  Bluff,  Rodney, 
and  Jackson  again.  The  respective  lengths  of 
these  straight  lines  are  forty,  fifty,  and  seventy 
miles.  But  roundabout  ways  by  land  and  water 
multiplied  these  distances,  and  much  fighting 
and  many  obstacles  vastly  increased  Grant's 
diflBculties. 

An  army,  however,  that  had  managed  to  reach 
Bruinsburg  from  the  north  and  west  was  assuredly 
fit  for  more  hard  work  of  any  kind;  while  a  com- 
mander who  had  left  a  safe  base  above  Vicksburg 
and  landed  below,  to  live  on  (as  well  as  in)  an 
enemy  country  till  victory  should  give  him  a  new 
land  line  to  the  north,  must,  in  view  of  the  result- 
ant triumph,  be  counted  among  the  master-minds 
of  war.  Grant's  marvelous  skill  in  massing,  divid- 
ing, forwarding,  and  concentrating  his  forces  over  a 
hundred  miles  of  intricate  passages  between  Milli- 
ken's  Bend  and  Bruinsburg  was  only  excelled  by 


GRANT  WINS  THE  RIVER  WAR       269 

his  consummate  genius  in  carrying  out  this  daring 
operation,  forcing  his  way  through  his  enemies,  into 
full  possession  of  interior  lines,  between  their  great 
garrison  of  Vicksburg  and  their  field  army  from 
Jackson.  He  had  to  create  two  fronts  in  spite  of 
his  doubled  enemy  and  live  on  that  enemy's  country 
without  any  land  base  of  his  own. 

Grant  knew  the  country  was  quite  able  to  sup- 
port his  army  if  he  could  only  control  enough  of  it. 
Bread,  beef,  and  mutton  would  be  almost  unob- 
tainable. But  chickens,  turkeys,  and  ducks  were 
abundant,  while  hard-tack  would  do  instead  of 
bread.  Bird-and-biscuit  of  course  became  un- 
popular; and  after  weeks  of  it  Grant  was  not  sur- 
prised to  hear  a  soldier  mutter  "hard-tack"  loudly 
enough  for  others  to  take  up  the  cry.  By  this  time, 
however,  he  luckily  knew  that  the  bread  ration 
was  about  to  be  resumed;  and  when  he  told  the 
men  they  cheered  as  only  men  on  service  can  — 
men  to  whom  battles  are  rare  events  but  rations 
the  very  stuff  of  daily  existence.  Coffee,  bacon, 
beef,  and  mutton  came  next  in  popular  favor  when 
full  rations  were  renewed.  So  when  the  Northern 
land  line  was  reopened  towards  the  end  of  the  siege, 
and  friends  came  into  camp  with  presents  from 
home,  they  found,  to  their  amazement,  that  even 


270        CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

the  tenderest  spring  chicken  was  loathsome  to  their 
boys  in  blue. 

Grant  set  to  work  immediately  on  landing.  His 
first  objective  was  Grand  Gulf,  which  he  wanted  as 
a  field  base  for  further  advance.  But  in  order  to 
get  it  he  had  to  drive  away  the  enemy  from  Port 
Gibson,  which  was  by  no  means  easy,  even  with  su- 
perior numbers,  because  the  whole  country  there- 
abouts was  so  densely  wooded  and  so  intricately 
watered  that  concerted  movements  could  only  be 
made  along  the  few  and  conspicuous  roads.  On 
the  first  of  May,  however,  the  Confederates  were 
driven  off  before  their  reinforcements  could  arrive. 
McClernand  bungled  brigades  and  divisions  out 
of  mutual  support.  But  Grant  personally  put 
things  right  again. 

By  the  third  of  May  the  bridge  burnt  by  the 
enemy  had  been  repaired  and  Grant's  men  were 
crossing  to  press  them  back  on  Vicksburg,  so  as  to 
clear  Grand  Gulf.  Grant's  supply  train  (raised  by 
impressing  every  horse,  mule,  ox,  and  wheeled  thing 
in  the  neighborhood)  looked  more  like  comic  opera 
than  war.  Fine  private  carriages,  piled  high  with 
ammunition,  and  sometimes  drawn  by  mules  with 
straw  collars  and  rope  lines,  went  side  by  side  with 
the  longest  plantation  wagons  drawn  by  many  oxen. 


GRANT  WINS  THE  RIVER  WAR       271 

or  with  a  two-wheeled  cart  drawn  by  a  thorough- 
bred horse. 

Before  any  more  actions  could  be  fought  news 
came  through  that  the  Federals  in  Virginia  had 
been  terribly  beaten  by  Lee,  who  was  now  expected 
to  invade  the  North.  The  South  was  triumphant; 
so  much  so,  indeed,  that  its  Government  thought 
the  war  itself  had  now  been  won.  But  Lincoln, 
Grant,  and  Lee  knew  better. 

Swiftly,  silently,  and  with  a  sure  strategic  touch, 
Grant  marched  northeast  on  Jackson,  to  make  his 
rear  secure  before  he  turned  on  Vicksburg.  On  the 
twelfth  he  won  at  Raymond  and  on  the  fourteenth 
at  Jackson  itself.  Here  he  turned  back  west  again. 
On  the  sixteenth  he  won  the  stubborn  fight  of 
Champion's  Hill,  on  the  seventeenth  he  won  again 
at  Big  Black  River,  and  on  the  eighteenth  he  ap- 
peared before  the  lines  of  Vicksburg.  With  the 
prestige  of  five  victories  in  twenty  days,  and  with 
the  momentum  acquired  in  the  process,  he  then 
tried  to  carry  the  lines  by  assault  on  the  spot.  But 
the  attack  of  the  nineteenth  failed,  as  did  its  re- 
newal on  the  twenty-second.  Next  day  both  sides 
settled  down  to  a  six  weeks'  siege. 

The  failure  of  the  two  assaults  was  recognized 
by  friend  and  foe  as  being  a  mere  check;  and 


272        CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

Grant's  men  all  believed  they  had  now  found  the 
looked-for  leader.  So  they  had.  Like  Lee  and 
Stonewall  Jackson  in  Virginia,  Grant,  with  as  yet 
inferior  numbers  (but  with  the  immense  advantage 
of  sea-power),  had  seized,  held,  and  acted  on  in- 
terior lines  so  ably  that  his  forty-three  thousand 
men  had  out-maneuvered  and  out-fought  the  sixty 
thousand  of  the  enemy,  beating  them  in  detail  on 
ground  of  their  own  besides  inflicting  a  threefold 
loss.  Grant  lost  little  over  four  thousand.  The 
Confederates  lost  nearly  twelve  thousand,  half  of 
whom  were  captured. 

The  only  real  trouble,  besides  the  failure  to  carry 
the  hnes  by  assault,  was  with  the  two  bad  generals, 
McClernand  and  Banks.  McClemand  had  promul- 
gated an  order  praising  his  own  corps  to  the  skies 
and  conveying  the  idea  that  he  and  it  had  won  the 
battles.  Moreover,  he  hinted  that  he  had  succeed- 
ed in  the  assault  while  the  others  had  failed.  This 
was  especially  oflFensive  because  Grant,  at  Mc- 
Clernand's  urgent  request,  had  sent  reinforcements 
from  other  corps  to  confirm  a  success  that  he  found 
nonexistent  on  the  spot,  except  in  McClernand's 
own  words.  To  crown  this,  McClernand  had  sent 
his  oflBcial  order,  with  all  its  misleading  statements, 
to  be  pubUshed  in  the  Northern  press;  and  the 


GRANT  WINS  THE  RIVER  WAR        273 

whole  army  was  now  supplied  with  the  papers  con- 
taining it.  So  gross  a  breach  of  discipline  could  not 
go  unpunished ;  and  McClernand  was  sent  back  to 
Springfield  in  disgrace. 

Banks,  unfortunately,  was  senior  to  Grant  and 
of  course  independent  of  Farragut;  so  he  could 
safely  vex  them  both  —  Grant,  by  spoiling  the 
plan  of  concerting  the  attacks  on  Port  Hudson  and 
Vicksburg  in  May;  Farragut,  by  continual  failure 
in  cooperation  and  by  leaving  big  guns  exposed  to 
capture  on  the  west  bank.  But  things  turned  out 
well,  after  all.  The  guns  were  saved  by  the  naval 
vessels  that  beat  off  a  Confederate  attack  on  Don- 
aldson ville;  and  Grant's  army  was  saved  from 
coming  under  Banks's  command  by  Banks's  own 
egregious  failure  in  cooperation.  This  failure  thus 
became  a  blessing  in  disguise:  a  disguise  too  good 
for  Halleck,  whose  reprimand  from  Washington 
on  the  twenty-third  of  May  shows  what  dangers 
lurked  beneath  the  might-have-been.  "The  Gov- 
ernment is  exceedingly  disappointed  that  you  and 
General  Grant  are  not  acting  in  conjunction.  It 
thought  to  secure  that  object  by  authorizing  you 
to  assume  the  entire  command  as  soon  as  you  and 
General  Grant  could  unite." 

In  the  end  the  Confederates  suffered  much  more 

i8 


274        CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

than  the  Federals  from  civilian  interference;  for 
the  orders  of  their  Government  came  through  in 
time  to  confuse  a  situation  that  was  already  bad 
and  growing  worse.  Between  Porter  afloat  and 
Grant  ashore  Vicksburg  was  doomed  unless  "Joe" 
Johnston  came  west  with  sufficient  force  to  reheve 
it  in  time.  Johnston  did  come  early  enough,  but 
not  in  sufficient  force;  so  the  next  best  thing  was 
to  destroy  all  stores,  abandon  Vicksburg,  and  save 
the  garrison .  The  Government,  however,  sent  posi- 
tive orders  to  hold  Vicksburg  to  the  very  last  gasp. 
Johnston  had  meanwhile  sent  Pemberton  (the 
Vicksburg  commander)  orders  to  combine  with 
him  in  free  maneuvering  for  an  attack  in  the  field. 
But  Pemberton*s  own  idea  was  to  await  Grant 
on  the  Big  Black  River,  where,  with  Johnston's 
help,  he  thought  he  could  beat  him.  Then  fol- 
lowed hesitation,  a  futile  attempt  to  harmonize 
the  three  incompatible  schemes;  and  presently  the 
division  of  the  Confederates  into  separated  armies, 
driven  apart  by  Grant,  whose  own  army  soon  dug 
itself  in  between  them  and  quickly  grew  stronger 
than  both. 

Grant's  lines,  facing  both  opponents,  from 
Haynes's  Bluff  to  Warrenton,  were  fifteen  miles 
long,  which  gave  him  one  man  per  foot  when  his 


GRANT  WINS  THE  RIVER  WAR       275 

full  strength  was  reached.  Pemberton's  were  only 
seven;  and  his  position  was  strong,  both  towards 
the  river,  where  the  bluffs  rose  two  hundred  feet, 
and  on  the  landward  side,  where  the  slopes  were 
sharp  and  well  fortified.  Grant  closed  in,  however, 
and  pressed  the  bombardment  home.  Except  for 
six  32-pounders  and  a  battery  of  big  naval  guns 
he  had  nothing  but  field  artillery.  Yet  the  abun- 
dance of  ammunition,  the  closeness  of  the  range, 
and  the  support  of  his  many  excellent  snipers, 
soon  gave  him  the  upper  hand.  Six  hundred  yards 
was  the  farthest  the  lines  were  apart.  In  some 
places  they  nearly  touched. 

All  ranks  worked  hard,  especially  at  engineering, 
in  which  there  was  such  a  dearth  of  officers  that 
Grant  ordered  every  West  Pointer  to  do  his  turn 
with  the  sappers  and  miners  as  well  as  his  other 
duty.  This  brought  forth  a  respectful  protest  from 
the  enormously  fat  Chief  Commissary,  who  said  he 
could  only  be  used  as  a  sap-roller  (the  big  roller  sap- 
pers shove  protectingly  before  them  when  snipers 
get  their  range).  The  real  sap-rollers  came  to  grief 
when  an  ingenious  Confederate  stuffed  port-fires 
with  turpentined  cotton  and  shot  them  into  rollers 
only  a  few  yards  off.  But  after  this  the  Federals 
kept  their  rollers  wet;  and  sapped  and  burrowed 


276        CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

till  the  big  mine  was  fully  charged  and  safe  from 
the  Confederate  countermine,  which  had  missed 
its  mark. 

While  trying  to  blow  each  other  up  the  men  on 
both  sides  exchanged  amenities  and  chaff  like  the 
best  of  friends.  Each  side  sold  its  papers  to  the 
other;  and  the  wall-paper  newsprint  of  Vicksburg 
made  a  good  war  souvenir  for  both.  There  was  a 
steady  demand  for  Federal  bread  and  Confederate 
tobacco.  When  market  time  was  over  the  Con- 
federates would  heave  down  hand-grenades,  which 
agile  Federals,  good  at  baseball,  would  heave  up- 
hill again  before  they  exploded.  And  woe  to  the 
man  whose  head  appeared  out  of  hours;  for  snipers 
were  always  on  the  watch,  especially  that  prince 
of  snipers,  Lieutenant  H.  C.  Foster,  renowned  as 
"Coonskin"  from  the  cap  he  wore.  A  wonderful 
stalker  and  dead  shot  he  was  a  terror  to  exposed 
Confederates  at  all  times;  but  more  particularly 
towards  the  end,  when  (their  front  artillery  having 
been  silenced  by  Grant's  guns)  Coonskin  built  a 
log  tower,  armored  with  railway  iron,  from  which 
he  picked  off  men  who  were  safe  from  ordinary  fire. 

On  the  twenty-first  of  June  Pemberton  planned 
an  escape  across  the  Mississippi  and  built  some 
rough  boats.    But  Grant  heard  of  this;  the  flotilla 


GRANT  WINS  THE  RIVER  WAR        277 

grew  more  watchful  still;  and  before  any  attempt 
at  escape  could  be  made  the  great  mine  was  fired 
on  the  twenty-fifth.  The  whole  top  of  the  hill  was 
blown  off,  and  with  it  some  men  who  came  down 
alive  on  the  Federal  side.  Among  these  was  an 
unwounded  but  terrified  colored  man,  who,  on 
being  asked  how  high  he  had  gone,  said,  "Dunno, 
Massa,  but  t'ink  'bout  t'ree  mile."  An  immense 
crater  was  formed.  But  there  was  no  practicable 
breach ;  so  the  assault  was  deferred.  A  second  mine 
was  exploded  on  the  first  of  July.  But  again  there 
was  no  assault;  for  Grant  had  decided  to  wait  till 
several  huge  mines  could  be  exploded  simultane- 
ously. In  the  meantime  an  intercepted  dispatch 
warned  him  that  Johnston  would  try  to  help 
Pemberton  to  cut  his  way  out.  But  by  the  time 
the  second  mine  was  exploded  Pemberton  was 
sounding  his  generals  about  the  chances  of  get- 
ting their  own  thirty  thousand  to  join  John- 
ston's thirty  thousand  against  Grant's  seventy- 
five  thousand.  The  generals  said  No.  Negotia- 
tions then  began. 

On  the  third  of  July  Grant  met  Pemberton 
under  the  "Vicksburg  Oak,"  which,  though  quite 
a  small  tree,  furnished  souvenir-hunters  with  many 
cords  of  sacred  wood  in  after  years.    Grant  very 


278        CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

wisely  allowed  surrender  on  parole,  which  some- 
what depleted  Confederate  ranks  in  the  future  by 
the  number  of  men  who,  returning  to  their  homes, 
afterwards  refused  to  come  back  when  the  ex- 
change of  prisoners  would  have  permitted  them 
to  do  so. 

That  was  a  great  week  of  Federal  victory  —  the 
week  including  the  third,  fourth,  and  eighth  of 
July.  On  the  third  Lee  was  defeated  at  Gettys- 
burg. On  the  now  doubly  "Glorious  Fourth" 
Vicksburg  surrendered  and  the  last  Confederate 
attack  was  repulsed  at  Helena  in  Arkansas.  On 
the  eighth  Port  Hudson  surrendered.  With  this 
the  whole  Mississippi  fell  into  Federal  hands  for 
good.  On  the  first  of  August  Farragut  left  New 
Orleans  for  New  York  in  the  battle-scarred  Hart- 
ford after  turning  over  the  Mississippi  command 
to  Porter's  separate  care. 

Meanwhile  the  Confederates  in  Tennessee,  weak- 
ened by  reinforcing  Johnston  against  Grant,  had 
been  obliged  to  retire  on  Chattanooga.  To  cover 
this  retirement  and  make  what  diversion  he  could, 
Bragg  sent  John  H.  Morgan  with  twenty-five 
hundred  cavalry  to  raid  Kentucky,  Indiana,  and 
Ohio.    Perplexing  the  outnumbering  Federals  by 


GRANT  WINS  THE  RIVER  WAR       279 

his  daring,  "Our  Jack  Morgan"  crossed  the  Ohio 
at  Brandenburg,  rode  northeast  through  Indiana, 
wheeled  south  at  Hamilton,  Ohio,  rode  through 
the  suburbs  of  Cincinnati,  reached  Buffington 
Island  on  the  border  of  West  Virginia,  and  then, 
hotly  pursued  by  ever-increasing  forces,  made 
northeast  toward  Pennsylvania.  On  the  twenty- 
sixth  of  July  he  surrendered  near  New  Lisbon  with 
less  than  four  hundred  men  left. 

The  Confederate  main  body  passed  the  summer 
vainly  trying  to  stem  the  advance  of  the  Army 
of  the  Cumberland,  with  which  Rosecrans  and 
Thomas  skillfully  maneuvered  Bragg  farther  and 
farther  south  till  they  had  forced  him  into  and 
out  of  Chattanooga.  In  the  meantime  Burnside's 
Ajmy  of  the  Ohio  cleared  eastern  Tennessee  and 
settled  down  in  Knoxville. 

But  in  the  middle  of  September  Longstreet  came 
to  Bragg's  rescue;  and  a  desperate  battle  was 
fought  at  Chickamauga  on  the  nineteenth  and 
twentieth.  The  Confederates  had  seventy  thou- 
sand men  against  fifty-six  thousand  Federals :  odds 
of  five  to  four.  They  were  determined  to  win  at 
any  price;  and  it  cost  them  eighteen  thousand  men, 
killed,  wounded,  and  missing;  which  was  two  thou- 
sand more  than  the  Federals  lost.     But  they  felt 


280        CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

it  was  now  or  never  as  they  turned  to  bay  with, 
for  once,  superior  numbers.  As  usual,  too,  they 
coveted  Federal  supplies.  "Come  on,  boys,  and 
charge!"  yelled  an  encouraging  sergeant,  "they 
have  cheese  in  their  haversacks!"  Yet  the  pride 
of  the  soldier  stood  higher  than  hunger.  General 
D.  H.  Hill  stooped  to  cheer  a  very  badly  wound- 
ed man.  "What's  your  regiment?"  asked  Hill. 
"Fifth  Confederate,  New  Orleans,  and  a  damned 
good  regiment  it  is, "  came  the  ready  answer. 

Rosecrans,  like  many  another  man  who  succeeds 
halfway  up,  failed  at  the  top.  He  ordered  an  imme- 
diate general  retreat  which  would  have  changed 
the  hard-won  Confederate  victory  into  a  Federal 
rout.  But  Thomas,  with  admirable  judgment  and 
iron  nerve,  stood  fast  till  he  had  shielded  all  the 
others  clear.  From  this  time  on  both  armies  knew 
him  as  the  "Rock  of  Chickamauga." 

The  unexpected  defeat  of  Chickamauga  roused 
W^ashington  to  immediate,  and  this  time  most 
sensible,  action.  Grant  was  given  supreme  com- 
mand over  the  whole  strategic  area.  Thomas  su- 
perseded Rosecrans.  Sherman  came  down  with 
the  Army  of  the  Tennessee.  And  Hooker  railed 
through  from  Virginia  with  two  good  veteran  corps. 
Meanwhile  the  Richmond  Government  was  more 


GRANT  WINS  THE  RIVER  WAR        281 

foolish  than  the  Washington  was  wise;  for  it  let 
Davis  mismanage  the  strategy  without  any  refer- 
ence to  Lee.  Bragg  also  made  a  capital  mistake 
by  sending  Longstreet  off  to  Knoxville  with  more 
than  a  third  of  his  command  just  before  Grant's 
final  advance.  The  result  was  that  Bragg  found 
himself  with  only  thirty  thousand  men  at  Chatta- 
nooga when  Grant  closed  in  with  sixty  thousand, 
and  that  Longstreet  was  useless  at  Knoxville, 
which  was  entirely  dependent  on  Chattanooga. 
Whoever  won  decisively  at  Chattanooga  could  have 
Knoxville  too.  Davis,  as  the  highest  authority, 
and  Bragg,  as  the  most  responsible  subordinate, 
ensured  their  own  defeat. 

Chattanooga  was  the  key  to  the  whole  strategic 
area  of  the  upper  Tennessee ;  for  it  was  the  best  road, 
rail,  and  river  junction  between  the  lower  Missis- 
sippi and  the  Atlantic  ports  of  the  South.  It 
had  been  held  for  some  time  by  a  Federal  garri- 
son which  had  made  it  fairly  strong.  But  toward 
the  end  of  October  it  was  short  of  supplies;  and 
Hooker  had  to  fight  Longstreet  at  Wauhatchie  in 
the  Lookout  Valley  before  it  could  be  revictualed. 
When  Hooker,  Thomas,  and  Sherman  were  there 
together  under  Grant  in  November  it  was  of  course 
perfectly  safe;   and  the   problem  changed   from 


282        CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

defense  to  attack.  The  question  was  how  to  drive 
Bragg  from  his  commanding  positions  on  Mission- 
ary Ridge  and  Lookout  Mountain.  The  woods 
and  hills  offered  concealment  to  the  attack  in  some 
places.  But  Lookout  Mountain  was  a  splendid  ob- 
servation post,  twenty-two  hundred  feet  high  and 
crested  with  columns  of  rock.  The  Ridge  was  three 
miles  east,  the  Mountain  three  miles  south,  of 
Cameron  Hill,  which  stood  just  west  of  Chattanoo- 
ga, commanding  the  bridge  of  boats  that  crossed 
the  Tennessee. 

The  battle,  fought  with  great  determination  on 
both  sides,  lasted  three  days  —  the  twenty-third, 
twenty-fourth,  and  twenty-fifth  of  November. 
Sherman  made  the  flank  attack  on  Missionary 
Ridge  from  the  north  and  Thomas  the  frontal  at- 
tack from  the  west.  Hooker  attacked  the  western 
flank  of  Lookout  Mountain. 

Thomas  did  the  first  day's  fighting,  which  was 
all  preliminary  work,  by  advancing  a  good  mile, 
taking  the  Confederate  lines  on  the  lower  slopes  of 
the  Ridge,  and  changing  their  defensive  features  to 
face  the  Ridge  instead  of  Chattanooga. 

At  two  the  next  morning  Giles  Smith's  brigade 
dropped  down  the  Tennessee  in  boats  and  sur- 
prised the  extreme  north  pickets  placed  by  Bragg 


GRANT  WINS  THE  RIVER  WAR       283 

at  the  mouth  of  the  South  Chickamauga  to  cover 
the  right  of  the  Ridge.  By  noon  Sherman's  men 
were  over  the  Tennessee  ready  to  cooperate  with 
Thomas.  Sherman  had  hidden  his  camp  among 
the  hills  on  the  other  side  so  well  that  his  move- 
ments could  not  be  observed,  even  from  the  com- 
manding height  of  Lookout  Mountain.  The  night 
surprise  of  Bragg's  pickets  and  the  drizzling  rain  of 
the  morning  prevented  the  Confederates  from  hear- 
ing or  seeing  anything  of  Sherman's  attack  in  the 
early  afternoon ;  so  he  found  himself  on  the  north- 
ern flank  of  Missionary  Ridge  before  Bragg's  main 
body  knew  what  he  was  doing.  W^hen  the  Con- 
federates did  attack  it  was  too  late;  and  the  twen- 
ty-fourth ended  with  Sherman  entrenched  against 
the  flank  on  even  higher  ground  than  Thomas  held 
against  the  center.  Sherman's  cavalry  had  mean- 
while moved  round  the  flank,  on  the  lower  level 
and  much  farther  off,  to  cut  Bragg's  right  rear  con- 
nection with  Chickamauga  Station,  whence  the 
rails  ran  east  to  Cleveland,  Knoxville,  and  Virginia. 
Hooker's  work  this  second  day  was  to  feel  the 
Confederate  force  on  Lookout  Mountain  while  keep- 
ing the  touch  with  Thomas,  who  kept  the  touch 
with  Sherman.  Mists  hid  his  earlier  maneuvers. 
He  closed  in  successfully,  handled  his   men   to 


284        CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

admiration,  and  gained  more  ground  than  either  he 
or  Grant  had  expected.  Having  succeeded  so  well 
he  changed  his  demonstration  into  a  regular  at- 
tack, which  became  known  as  the  "Battle  above 
the  Clouds."  Step  by  step  he  fought  his  way  up, 
over  breastworks  and  rifle  pits,  felled  trees  and 
bowlders,  thi'ough  ravines  and  gullies,  till  the  van- 
guard reached  the  giant  palisades  of  rock  which 
ramparted  the  top.  The  roar  of  battle  was  most  dis- 
tinctly heard  four  miles  away,  on  Orchard  Knob, 
where  Grant  and  Thomas  were  anxiously  waiting. 
But  nothing  could  be  seen  until  a  sudden  breeze 
blew  the  clouds  aside  just  as  the  long  blue  lines 
charged  home  and  the  broken  gray  retreated.  Then, 
from  thirty  thousand  watching  Federals,  went  up 
a  cheer  that  even  cannon  could  not  silence. 

At  midnight  Grant  sent  a  word  of  encouragement 
to  Burnside  at  Knoxville.  He  then  wrote  his  orders 
for  what  he  now  hoped  would  be  a  completely 
victorious  attack.  The  twenty-fifth  of  November 
broke  beautifully  clear,  and  the  whole  scene  of  ac- 
tion remained  in  full  view  all  day  long.  Fearful 
of  being  cut  off  from  their  main  body  on  Mission- 
ary Ridge  the  Confederates  had  left  Lookout  Moun- 
tain under  cover  of  the  dark.  But  by  destroying 
the  bridges  across  the  Chattanooga  River,  which 


GRANT  WINS  THE  RIVER  WAR        285 

ran  through  the  valley  between  the  Mountain  and 
the  Ridge,  they  delayed  Hooker  till  late  that  after- 
noon, thus  saving  their  left  from  an  even  worse  dis- 
aster than  the  one  that  overtook  their  center  and 
their  right. 

Sherman  had  desperate  work  against  their  right, 
as  Bragg  massed  every  available  gun  and  man  to 
meet  him.  This  massing,  however,  was  just  what 
Grant  wanted;  for  he  now  expected  Hooker  to  ap- 
pear on  the  other  flank,  which  Bragg  would  either 
have  to  give  up  in  despair  or  strengthen  at  the  ex- 
pense of  the  center,  which  Thomas  was  ready  to 
charge.  But  with  Hooker  not  appearing,  and  Sher- 
man barely  holding  his  own,  Grant  slipped  Thomas 
from  the  leash.  The  two  centers  then  met  hand  to 
hand.  But  there  was  no  withstanding  the  Federal 
charge.  Back  went  the  Confederates,  turning  to 
bay  at  their  second  line  of  defense.  Here  again 
they  were  overborne  by  well-led  superior  numbers 
and  soon  put  to  flight.  Sheridan,  of  whom  we  shall 
hear  again  in  '64,  took  up  the  pursuit.  Bragg  lost 
all  control  of  his  men.  Stores,  guns,  and  even  rifles 
were  abandoned.  Thousands  of  prisoners  were 
taken;  and  most  of  the  others  were  scattered  in 
flight.  The  battle,  the  whole  campaign,  and  even 
the  war  in  the  Tennessee  sector,  were  won. 


286        CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

Vicksburg  meant  that  the  trans-Mississippi  South 
would  thenceforth  wither  like  a  severed  branch. 
Chattanooga  meant  that  the  Union  forces  had  at 
last  laid  the  axe  to  the  root  of  the  tree. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

GETTYSBURG:  1863 

On  the  fifth  of  May  we  left  Lee  victorious  in  Vir- 
ginia; but  with  his  indispensable  lieutenant,  Stone- 
wall Jackson,  mortally  wounded. 

Though  thoroughly  defeated  at  Chancellorsville, 
Hooker  soon  recovered  control  of  the  Army  of  the 
Potomac  and  prepared  to  dispute  Lee's  right  of 
way.  Lee  faced  a  difficult,  perhaps  an  insoluble, 
problem.  Longstreet  urged  him  to  relieve  the  local 
pressure  on  Vicksburg  by  concentrating  every 
available  man  in  eastern  Tennessee,  not  only  with- 
drawing Johnston's  force  from  Grant's  rear  but  also 
depleting  the  Confederates  in  Virginia  for  the  same 
purpose.  Then,  combining  these  armies  from  east 
and  west  with  the  one  already  there  under  Bragg, 
the  united  Confederates  were  to  crush  Rosecrans 
in  their  immediate  front  and  make  Cincinnati  their 
great  objective.  Lee,  however,  dared  not  risk  the 
loss  of  his  Virginian  bases  in  the  meantime;  and  so 

287 


288        CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

he  decided  on  a  vigorous  counter-attack,  right  into 
Pennsylvania,  hoping  that,  if  successful,  this  would 
produce  a  greater  effect  than  any  corresponding 
victory  could  possibly  produce  elsewhere. 

On  the  ninth  of  June  a  cavalry  combat  round 
Brandy  Station,  in  the  heart  of  Virginia,  made 
Hooker's  staff  feel  certain  that  Lee  was  again  going 
up  the  Valley  and  on  to  Maryland.  At  one  time, 
for  want  of  supplies,  Lee  had  to  spread  out  his 
front  along  a  line  running  eighty  miles  northwest 
from  Fredericksburg  to  Strasburg.  Hooker,  on  the 
keen  alert,  implored  the  Government  to  let  him 
attack  the  three  Confederate  corps  in  detail.  Suc- 
cess against  one  at  least  was  certain.  Lincoln  un- 
derstood this  perfectly.  But  the  nerves  of  his 
colleagues  were  again  on  edge;  and  no  argument 
could  persuade  them  to  adopt  the  best  of  all  pos- 
sible schemes  of  defense  by  destroying  the  enemy's 
means  of  destroying  them.  They  insisted  on  the 
usual  shield  theory  of  passive  defense,  and  ordered 
Hooker  to  keep  between  Lee  and  Washington 
whatever  might  happen.  This  absurd  maneuver 
was  of  course  attended  with  all  the  usual  evil  re- 
sults at  the  time.  Equally  of  course,  it  afterwards 
drew  down  the  wrath  of  the  wiseacre  public  on 
their  own  representatives.     But  wiseacre  publics 


GETTYSBURG:  1863  289 

never  stop  to  think  that  many  a  government  is 
forced  to  do  foolish  and  even  suicidal  things  in 
war  simply  because  it  represents  the  ignorance 
and  folly,  as  well  as  the  wisdom,  of  all  who  have 
the  vote. 

Yet  both  the  loyal  public  and  its  Government 
had  some  good  reasons  to  doubt  Hooker's  ability, 
even  apart  from  his  recent  defeat;  and  Lincoln, 
wisest  of  all  —  except  in  applying  strategy  to 
problems  he  could  not  fully  understand  —  felt 
almost  certain  that  Hooker's  character  contained 
at  least  the  seeds  of  failure  in  supreme  command. 
"He  talks  to  me  like  a  father,"  said  Hooker,  on 
reading  the  letter  Lincoln  wrote  when  appoint- 
ing him  Burnside's  successor.  This  remarkable  let- 
ter, dated  January  26,  1863,  though  printed  many 
times,  is  worth  reading  again : 

I  have  placed  you  at  the  head  of  the  Army  of  the 
Potomac.  Of  course  I  have  done  this  upon  what  ap- 
pears to  me  to  be  suflBcient  reasons,  and  yet  I  think  it 
best  for  you  to  know  that  there  are  some  things  in  re- 
gard to  which  I  am  not  quite  satisfied  with  you.  I 
believe  you  to  be  a  brave  and  skillful  soldier,  which,  of 
course,  I  like.  I  also  believe  you  do  not  mix  politics 
with  your  profession,  in  which  you  are  right.  You 
have  confidence  in  yourself,  which  is  a  valuable,  if  not 
an  indispensable,  quality.    You  are  ambitious,  which, 

19 


290        CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

within  reasonable  bounds,  does  good  rather  than 
harm;  but  I  think  that  during  General  Burnside's 
command  of  the  army  you  have  taken  counsel  of  your 
ambition,  and  thwarted  him  as  much  as  you  could,  in 
which  you  did  a  great  wrong  to  the  country  and  to 
a  most  meritorious  and  honorable  brother  officer,  I 
have  heard,  in  such  way  as  to  believe  it,  of  your  re- 
cently saying  that  both  the  army  and  the  Government 
needed  a  Dictator.  Of  course  it  was  not  for  this,  but 
in  spite  of  it,  that  I  have  given  you  the  command. 
Only  those  generals  who  gain  successes  can  set  up  dic- 
tatorships. What  I  now  ask  of  you  is  military  success, 
and  I  will  risk  the  dictatorship.  The  Government  will 
support  you  to  the  utmost  of  its  ability,  which  is 
neither  more  nor  less  than  it  has  done  and  will  do  for 
all  commanders.  I  much  fear  that  the  spirit  which 
you  have  aided  to  infuse  into  the  army,  of  criticizing 
their  commander  and  withholding  confidence  from 
him,  will  now  turn  upon  you.  I  shall  assist  you  as  far 
as  I  can  to  put  it  down.  Neither  you  nor  Napoleon, 
if  he  were  alive  again,  could  get  any  good  out  of 
an  army  while  such  a  spirit  prevails  in  it.  And  now, 
beware  of  rashness,  but  with  energy  and  sleepless 
vigilance  go  forward,  and  give  us  victories. 

Then  came  Chancellorsville,  doubts  at  Washington, 
interference  by  Stanton,  ill-judged  orders  from 
Halleck,  and  some  not  very  judicious  rejoinders 
from  Hooker  himself,  who  became  rather  peev- 
ish, to  Lincoln's  alarm.  So  when,  on  the  twenty- 
seventh  of  June,  Hooker  tendered  his  resignation, 


GETTYSBURG:  1863  291 

it  was  promptly  accepted.  With  Lee  in  Pennsyl- 
vania there  was  no  time  for  discussion:  only  for 
finding  some  one  to  trust. 

Lee,  as  usual,  had  divined  the  political  forces 
working  on  the  Union  armies  from  Washington  and 
had  maneuvered  with  a  combination  of  skill  and 
daring  that  exactly  met  the  situation.  Throwing 
his  left  forward  (under  Ewell)  in  the  Shenandoah 
Valley  he  had  driven  Milroy  out  of  Winchester 
on  the  fourteenth  of  June  and  next  day  secured  a 
foothold  across  the  Potomac.  Then  the  rest  of  liis 
army  followed.  It  was  so  much  stretched  out  (to 
facilitate  its  food  supply)  that  Lincoln  again  wished 
to  strike  it  at  any  vulnerable  spot.  But  the  Cab- 
inet in  general  (and  Stanton  in  particular)  were 
still  determined  that  the  Union  army  should  be 
their  passive  shield,  not  their  active  sword.  On  the 
twenty-fourth  Ewell  was  already  beginning  to 
semicircle  Gettysburg  from  the  Cumberland  Valley. 
On  the  twenty-eighth,  the  day  on  which  Meade 
succeeded  Hooker  in  the  Federal  command,  the 
Confederate  semicircle,  now  formed  by  Lee's  whole 
army,  stretched  from  Chambersburg  on  the  west, 
through  Carlisle  on  the  north,  to  York  on  the  east; 
while  the  massed  Federals  were  still  in  Maryland, 
near  Middletown  and  Frederick,  thirty  miles  south 


292        CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

of  Gettysburg,  and  only  forty  miles  northwest  of 
nervous  Washington. 

Hooker's  successor,  George  G.  Meade,  was  the 
fifth  defender  of  Washington  within  the  last  ten 
months.  Luckily  for  the  Union,  Meade  was  a 
sound,  though  not  a  great,  commander,  and  his 
hands  were  fairly  free.  Luckily  again,  he  was  suc- 
ceeded in  command  of  the  Fifth  Corps  by  George 
Sykes,  the  excellent  leader  of  those  magnificent 
regulars  who  fought  so  well  at  Antietam  and 
Second  Manassas.  The  change  from  interference 
to  control  was  made  only  just  in  time  at  Washing- 
ton; for  three  days  after  Meade's  free  hand  began 
to  feel  its  way  along  the  threatened  front  the  armies 
met  upon  the  unexpected  battlefield  of  Gettysburg. 

Lee  in  Pennsylvania  was  in  the  midst  of  a  very 
hostile  population  and  facing  superior  forces  which 
he  could  only  defeat  in  one  of  two  difficult  ways: 
either  by  a  sudden,  bewildering,  and  unexpected 
attack,  like  Jackson's  and  his  own  at  Chancellors- 
ville,  or  by  an  impregnable  defense  on  ground  that 
also  favored  a  victorious  counter-attack  and  the 
subsequent  crushing  pursuit.  But  there  was  no 
Jackson  now;  and  the  nature  of  the  country  did  not 
favor  the  bewildering  of  Federals  who  were  fighting 
at  home  under  excellent  generals  well  served  by  a 


GETTYSBURG:  1863  293 

competent  staff  and  well  screened  by  cavalry.  So 
the  "fog  of  war"  was  quite  as  dense  round  Lee's 
headquarters  as  it  was  round  Meade's  on  the  first 
of  July,  when  Lee  found  that  his  chosen  point  of 
concentration  near  Gettysburg  was  already  occu- 
pied by  Buford's  cavalry,  with  infantry  and  some 
artillery  in  support.  The  surprise  —  and  no  very 
great  surprise  —  was  mutual.  The  Federals  were 
found  where  they  could  stand  on  their  defense  in  a 
very  strong  position  if  the  rest  of  their  army  could 
come  up  in  time.  And  Lee's  only  advantage  was 
that,  having  already  ordered  concentration  round 
the  same  position,  he  had  a  few  hours'  start  of 
Meade  in  getting  there. 

Each  commander  had  intended  to  make  the 
other  one  attack  if  possible;  and  Meade  of  course 
knew  that  Lee,  with  inferior  numbers  and  vast- 
ly inferior  supplies,  could  not  afford  to  stay  long 
among  gathering  enemies  in  the  hostile  North  with- 
out decisive  action.  The  Confederates  must  either 
fight  or  retreat  without  fighting,  and  make  their 
choice  very  soon.  So,  when  the  two  armies  met  at 
Gettysburg,  Lee  was  practically  forced  to  risk  an 
immediate  action  or  begin  a  retreat  that  might 
have  ruined  Confederate  morale. 

Gettysburg  is  one  of  those  battles  about  which 


294        CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

men  will  always  differ.  The  numbers  present,  the 
behavior  of  subordinates,  the  tactics  employed, 
were,  and  still  are,  subjects  of  dispute.  Above  all, 
there  is  the  vexed  question  of  what  Lee  should 
or  should  not  have  done.  We  have  little  space 
to  spare  for  any  such  discussions.  We  can  only 
refer  inquirers  to  the  original  evidence  (some  of 
which  is  most  conflicting)  and  give  the  gist  of  what 
seems  to  be  indubitable  fact.  The  numbers  were  a 
good  seventy  thousand  Confederates  against  about 
eighty  thousand  Federals.  But  these  are  the  ap- 
proximate grand  totals;  and  it  must  be  remem- 
bered that  the  Confederates,  having  the  start,  were 
in  superior  numbers  during  the  first  two  days. 
On  each  side  there  was  an  aggrieved  and  aggriev- 
ing subordinate  general.  Sickles  on  the  Federal 
side,  Longstreet  on  the  other.  But  Sickles  was  by 
far  the  less  importanjt  of  the  two.  In  tactics  the 
Federals  displayed  great  judgment,  skill,  and  reso- 
lution. The  Northern  people  called  Gettysburg 
a  soldiers'  battle;  and  so,  in  many  ways,  it  was;  for 
there  was  heroic  work  among  the  rank  and  file  on 
both  sides.  But  it  most  emphatically  was  not  a 
soldiers*  battle  in  the  sense  of  its  having  been  won 
more  by  the  rank  and  file  than  by  the  generals  in 
high  command;  for  never  did  so  many  Federal 


GETTYSBURG:  1863  295 

chiefs  show  to  such  great  advantage.  No  less  than 
five  commanded  in  succession  between  morning 
and  midnight  on  the  first  day,  each  meeting  the 
crisis  till  the  next  senior  came  up.  They  were  Bu- 
ford,  Reynolds,  Howard,  Hancock,  Meade.  Hunt 
also  excelled  in  command  of  the  artillery;  and  this 
in  spite  of  much  misorganization  of  that  arm  at 
Washington.  Warren  was  not  only  a  good  com- 
mander of  the  engineers  but  a  good  all-round  gen- 
eral, as  he  showed  by  seizing,  on  his  own  initiative, 
the  Little  Round  Top,  without  which  the  left  flank 
could  never  have  been  held. 

Finally,  there  is  the  great  vexed  question  of 
what  Lee  should  or  should  not  have  done.  First, 
it  seems  clear  that  (like  Farragut  and  unlike  Grant 
and  Jackson)  he  lacked  the  ruthless  power  of 
making  every  subordinate  bend  or  break  in  every 
time  of  crisis:  otherwise  he  would  have  bent  or 
broken  Longstreet.  Next,  it  may  have  been  that 
he  was  not  then  at  his  best.  Concludingly,  it  may 
be  granted  to  armchair  (and  even  other)  critics 
that  if  everything  had  been  something  else  the 
results  might  not  have  been  the  same. 

Lee,  having  invaded  the  North  by  marching 
northeast    under   cover    of    the    mountains    and 


296        CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

wheeling  southeast  to  concentrate  at  Gettysburg, 
found  Buford's  cavalry  suddenly  resisting  him,  as 
they  formed  the  northwest  outpost  of  Meade's 
army,  which  was  itself  concentrating  round  Pipe 
Creek,  near  Taneytown  in  Maryland,  fifteen  miles 
southeast.  Gettysburg  was  a  meeting  place  of  many 
important  roads.  It  stood  at  the  western  end  of  a 
branch  line  connecting  with  all  the  eastern  rails. 
And  it  occupied  a  strong  strategic  point  in  the 
vitally  important  triangle  formed  by  Pittsburgh, 
Philadelphia,  and  Washington.  Thus,  like  a  mag- 
net, it  drew  the  contending  armies  to  what  they 
knew  would  prove  a  field  decisive  of  the  whole 
campaign. 

The  Federal  line,  as  finally  held  on  the  third  of 
July,  was  nearly  five  miles  long.  The  front  faced 
west  and  was  nearly  three  miles  long.  The  flanks, 
thrown  back  at  right  angles,  faced  north  and  south. 
Near  the  north  end  of  the  front  stood  Cemetery 
Hill,  near  the  south  the  Devil's  Den,  a  maze  of 
gigantic  bowlders.  Along  the  front  the  ground  was 
mostly  ridged,  and  even  the  lower  ground  about  the 
center  was  a  rise  from  which  a  gradual  slope  went 
down  to  the  valley  that  rose  again  to  the  opposite 
heights  of  Seminary  Ridge,  where  Lee  had  his 
headquarters  only  a  mile  away.    The  so-called  hills 


GETTYSBURG:  1863  297 

were  no  more  than  hillocks,  the  ridges  were  low, 
and  most  slopes  were  those  of  a  rolling  country. 
But  the  general  contour  of  the  ground,  the  swelling 
hillocks  on  the  flanks  (Gulp's  Hill  on  the  right,  the 
Round  Tops  on  the  left)  and  the  broad  glacis  up 
which  attackers  must  advance  against  the  center, 
all  combined  to  make  the  position  very  strong 
indeed  when  held  by  even  or  superior  numbers. 

The  first  day's  fight  began  when  A.  P.  Hill's 
Confederates,  with  Longstreet's  following,  closed 
in  on  Gettysburg  from  the  west  to  meet  Ewell's, 
who  were  coming  down  from  the  north.  Buford's 
Federal  cavalry  resisted  Hill's  advanced  brigades 
successfully  till  Reynolds  had  brought  the  First 
Corps  forward  in  support  and  ordered  the  two 
other  nearest  corps  to  follow  at  the  double  quick. 
Reynolds  was  killed  early  in  the  day;  but  not 
before  his  well  trained  eye  had  taken  in  the  situa- 
tion at  a  glance  and  his  sure  judgment  had  half 
committed  both  armies  to  that  famous  field. 

The  full  commitment  came  shortly  after,  when 
Meade  sent  Hancock  forward  to  command  the 
three  corps  and  Buford's  cavalry  in  their  attempt 
to  stem  the  Confederate  advance.  Howard  was  then 
the  senior  general  on  the  field,  having  taken  over 
from   Doubleday,  who  had  succeeded   Reynolds. 


298        CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

But  he  at  once  agreed  that  such  a  strong  position 
should  be  held  and  that  Hancock  should  proceed 
to  rectify  the  lines.  This  was  no  easy  task;  for 
Ewell's  Confederates  had  meanwhile  come  down 
from  the  north  and  driven  in  the  Federal  flank  on 
the  already  hard-pressed  front.  The  front  there- 
upon gave  way  and  fell  back  in  confusion.  But 
Hancock's  masterly  work  was  quickly  done  and  the 
Federal  line  was  reestablished  so  well  that  the 
Confederates  paused  in  their  attack  and  waited  for 
the  morrow. 

The  Confederates  had  got  as  good  as  they  gave, 
much  to  their  disgust.  Archer,  one  of  their  best 
brigadiers,  felt  particularly  sore  when  most  of  his 
men  were  rounded  up  by  Meredith's  "Iron  Bri- 
gade." When  Doubleday  saw  his  old  West  Point 
friend  a  prisoner  he  shook  hands  cordially,  saying, 
*'  Well,  Archer,  I  aj?i  glad  to  see  you ! "  But  Archer 
answered,  "Well,  I'm  not  so  glad  to  see  you  —  not 
by  a  damned  sight ! "  The  fact  was  that  the  excel- 
lent Federal  defense  had  come  as  a  very  unpleas- 
ing  surprise  upon  the  rather  too  cocksm-e  Confeder- 
ates. Buford's  cavalry  and  Reynolds's  infantry 
had  staunchly  withstood  superior  numbers;  while 
Lieutenant  Bayard  Wilkeson  actually  held  back  a 
Confederate  division  for  some  time  with  the  guns 


GETTYSBURG:  1863  299 

of  Battery  G,  Fourth  U.  S.  Artillery.  This  heroic 
youth,  only  nineteen  years  of  age,  kept  his  men  in 
action,  though  they  were  suffering  terrible  losses, 
till  two  converging  batteries  brought  him  down. 

He  was  well  matched  by  a  veteran  of  over 
seventy,  John  Burns,  an  old  soldier,  whom  the 
sound  of  battle  drew  from  his  little  home  like  the 
trumpet-call  to  arms.  In  his  swallow-tailed,  brass- 
buttoned,  old-fashioned  coatee.  Burns  seemed  a 
very  comic  sight  to  the  nearest  boys  in  blue  until 
they  found  he  really  meant  to  join  them  and  that 
he  knew  a  thing  or  two  of  war.  "Which  way  are 
the  rebels.'*"  he  asked,  "and  where  are  our  troops.'^ 
I  know  how  to  fight  —  I've  fit  before."  So  he 
did;  and  he  fought  to  good  purpose  till  wounded 
three  times. 

Late  in  the  evening  Meade  arrived  and  inspected 
the  lines  by  moonlight.  Having  ordered  every  re- 
maining man  to  hasten  forward  he  faced  the  sec- 
ond day  with  well-founded  anxiety  lest  Lee's  full 
strength  should  break  thi-ough  before  his  own  last 
men  were  up.  His  right  was  not  safe  against  sur- 
prise by  the  Confederates  who  slept  at  the  foot  of 
Gulp's  Hill,  and  his  left  was  in  imminent  danger 
from  Longstreet's  corps.  But  on  the  second  day 
Longstreet  marked  his  disagreement  with  Lee's 


SOO        CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

plans  by  delaying  his  attack  till  Warren,  with  ad- 
mirable judgment,  had  ordered  the  Round  Tops  to 
be  seized  at  the  double  quick  and  held  to  the  last 
extremity.  Then,  after  wasting  enough  time  for 
this  to  be  done,  Longstreet  attacked  and  was  re- 
pulsed; though  his  men  fought  very  well.  Mean- 
while Ewell,  whose  attack  against  the  right  was  to 
synchronize  with  Longstreet's  against  the  left,  was 
delayed  by  Longstreet  till  the  afternoon,  when  he 
carried  Gulp's  Hill. 

This  was  the  only  Confederate  success;  for  Early 
failed  to  carry  Cemetery  Hill,  the  adjoining  high 
ground,  which  formed  the  right  center,  and  the  rest 
of  the  Federal  line  remained  intact;  though  not 
without  desperate  struggles. 

The  third  was  the  decisive  day;  and  on  it  Meade 
rose  to  the  height  of  his  unappreciated  skill.  This 
was  the  first  great  battle  in  which  all  the  chief 
Federals  worked  so  well  together  and  the  first  in 
which  the  commander-in-chief  used  reserves  with 
such  excellent  effect,  throwing  them  in  at  exactly 
the  right  moment  and  at  the  proper  place.  But 
these  indispensable  qualities  were  not  of  the  kind 
that  the  public  wanted  to  acclaim,  or,  indeed,  of 
the  kind  that  they  could  understand. 

Meade  was  determined  to  clear  his  flanks.    So 


GETTYSBURG:  1863  301 

he  began  at  dawn  to  attack  Ewell  on  Gulp's  Hill 
and  kept  on  doggedly  till,  after  four  hours  of  strenu- 
ous fighting,  he  had  driven  him  off.  By  this  time 
Meade  saw  that  Lee  was  not  going  to  press  home 
any  serious  attack  against  the  Round  Tops  and 
Devil's  Den  on  the  left.  So  the  main  interest  of 
the  whole  battle  shifted  to  the  center  of  the  field, 
where  Lee  was  massing  for  a  final  charge.  The  idea 
had  been  to  synchi'onize  three  cooperating  move- 
ments against  Meade's  whole  position.  His  left 
was  to  have  been  held  by  a  demonstration  in  force 
by  Longstreet  against  the  Devil's  Den  and  Round 
Tops,  while  Ewell  held  Gulp's  Hill,  which  seemed 
to  be  at  his  mercy,  and  which  would  flank  any 
Federal  retreat.  At  the  same  time  Meade's  center 
was  to  have  been  rushed  by  Pickett's  fresh  division 
supported  by  three  attached  brigades.  But  though 
the  central  force  was  ready  before  nine  o'clock  it 
never  stepped  off  till  three;  so  great  was  Long- 
street's  delay  in  ordering  Pickett's  advance.  Mean- 
while the  Federals  had  made  Gulp's  Hill  quite  safe 
against  Ewell.  So  all  depended  now  on  the  one  last 
desperate  assault  against  the  Federal  center. 

This  immortal  assault  is  known  as  Pickett's 
Charge  because  it  was  made  by  Pickett's  division 
of  Longstreet's  corps  supported  by  three  brigades 


302        CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

from  Hill's  —  Wilcox's,  Perry's,  and  Pettigrew's. 
The  whole  formed  a  mass  of  about  ten  thousand 
men.  If  they  broke  the  Federal  line  in  two,  then 
every  supporting  Confederate  was  to  follow,  while 
the  rest  turned  the  flanks.  If  they  failed,  then  the 
battle  must  be  lost. 

Hour  after  hour  passed  by.  But  it  was  not  till 
well  past  one  that  Longstreet  opened  fire  with  a 
hundred  and  forty  guns.  Hunt  had  seventy-seven 
ready  to  reply.  But  after  firing  for  half  an  hour  he 
ceased,  wishing  to  reserve  his  ammunition  for  use 
against  the  charging  infantry.  This  encouraged 
the  Confederate  gunners,  who  thought  they  had 
silenced  him.  They  then  continued  for  some  time, 
preparing  the  way  for  the  charge,  but  firing  too 
high  and  doing  little  execution  against  the  Federal 
infantry,  who  were  lying  down,  mostly  under  cover. 
Hunt's  guns  were  more  exposed  and  formed  better 
targets;  so  some  of  them  suffered  severely:  none 
more  than  those  of  Battery  A,  Fourth  U.  S.  Artil- 
lery. This  gallant  battery  had  three  of  its  limbers 
blown  up  and  replaced.  Wheels  were  also  smashed 
to  pieces  and  guns  put  out  of  action,  till  only  a 
single  gun,  with  men  enough  to  handle  it,  was  left 
with  only  a  single  oflScer.  This  heroic  young  lieu- 
tenant, Alonzo  H.  Cushing  (brother  to  the  naval 


GETTYSBURG:  1863  303 

Cushing  who  destroyed  the  Albemarle),  then  ran  his 
gun  up  to  the  fence  and  fired  his  last  round  through 
it  into  Pickett's  men  as  he  himself  fell  dead. 

Pickett  advanced  at  three  o'clock,  to  the  breath- 
less admiration  of  both  friend  and  foe.  He  had  a 
mile  of  open  ground  to  cover.  But  his  three  lines 
marched  forward  as  steadily  and  blithely  as  if  the 
occasion  was  a  gala  one  and  they  were  on  parade. 
The  Confederate  bombardment  ceased.  The  Fed- 
eral guns  and  rifles  held  their  fire.  Fate  hung  in 
silence  on  those  gallant  lines  of  gray.  Then  the 
Federal  skirmishers  down  in  the  valley  began  fit- 
fully firing;  and  the  waiting  masses  on  the  Federal 
slopes  began  to  watch  more  intently  still.  "Here 
they  come!  Here  comes  the  infantry ! "  The  blue 
ranks  stirred  a  little  as  the  men  felt  their  cartridge 
boxes  and  the  sockets  of  their  bayonets.  The  calm 
warnings  of  the  oflBcers  could  be  heard  all  down  the 
line  of  Gibbon's  magnificent  division,  which  stood 
straight  in  Pickett's  path.  "Steady,  men,  steady! 
Don't  fire  yet!" 

For  a  very  few,  tense  minutes  Pickett's  division 
disappeared  in  an  undulation  of  the  ground.  Then, 
at  less  than  point-blank  range,  it  seemed  to  spring 
out  of  the  very  earth,  no  longer  in  three  lines  but 
one  solid  mass  of  rushing  gray,  cresting,  like  a  tidal 


304        CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

wave,  to  break  in  fury  on  the  shore.  Instantly,  as 
if  in  answer  to  a  single  word,  Hunt's  guns  and  Gib- 
bon's rifles  crashed  out  together,  and  shot,  shell, 
canister,  and  bullet  cut  gaping  wounds  deep  into  the 
dense  gray  ranks.  Still,  the  wave  broke ;  and,  from 
its  storm-blown  top,  one  furious  tongue  surged 
over  the  breastwork  and  through  the  hedge  of 
bayonets.  It  came  from  Armistead's  brigade  of 
stark  Virginians.  He  led  it  on;  and,  with  a  few 
score  men,  reached  the  highwater  mark  of  that 
last  spring  tide. 

When  he  fell  the  tide  of  battle  turned;  turned 
everywhere  upon  that  stricken  field;  turned 
throughout  the  whole  campaign;  turned  even  in 
the  war  itself. 

As  Pickett's  men  fell  back  they  were  swept  by 
scythe-like  fire  from  every  gun  and  rifle  that  could 
mow  them  down.  Not  a  single  mounted  officer 
remained;  and  of  all  the  brave  array  that  Pickett 
led  three-fourths  fell  killed  or  wounded.  The  other 
fourth  returned  undaunted  still,  but  only  as  the 
wreckage  of  a  storm. 

Lee's  loss  exceeded  forty  per  cent  of  his  com- 
mand. Meade's  loss  fell  short  of  thirty.  But 
Meade  was  quite  unable  to  pursue  at  once  when  Lee 
retired  on  the  evening  of  the  fourth .     The  opposing 


~~^ 


___  Grant 

Farragut 

Hooker  Bitc/Meoc/e Lee 

Morgan 


GETTYSBURG:  1863  305 

cavalry,  under  Pleasonton  and  Stuart  respective- 
ly, had  fought  a  flanking  battle  of  their  own,  but 
without  decisive  result.  So  Lee  could  screen  his 
retreat  to  the  Potomac,  where,  however,  his  whole 
supply  train  might  have  been  cut  off  if  its  escort  un- 
der the  steadfast  Imboden  had  not  been  reinforced 
by  every  teamster  who  could  pull  a  trigger. 

Gettysburg  and  Vicksburg,  coming  together,  of 
course  raised  the  wildest  expectations  among  the 
general  public,  expectations  which  foimd  an  un- 
worthy welcome  at  Government  headquarters, 
where  Halleck  wrote  to  Meade  on  the  fourteenth: 
"The  escape  of  Lee's  army  has  created  great  dis- 
satisfaction in  the  mind  of  the  President."  Meade 
at  once  replied:  "The  censure  is,  in  my  judgment, 
so  undeserved  that  I  most  respectfully  ask  to  be 
immediately  relieved  from  the  command  of  this 
army.'*    Wiser  counsels  thereupon  prevailed. 

Lee  and  Meade  maneuvered  over  the  old  Vir- 
ginian scenes  of  action,  each  trying  to  outflank  the 
other,  and  each  being  hampered  by  having  to  send 
reinforcements  to  their  friends  in  Tennessee,  where, 
as  we  have  seen  already,  Bragg  and  Rosecrans  were 
now  maneuvering  in  front  of  Chattanooga.  In 
October  (after  the  Confederate  victory  of  Chicka- 


306        CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

mauga)  Meade  foiled  Lee's  attempt  to  bring  on  a 
Third  Manassas.  The  campaign  closed  at  Mine 
Run,  where  Lee  repulsed  Meade's  attempted  sur- 
prise in  a  three-day  action,  which  began  on  the 
twenty-sixth  of  November,  the  morrow  of  Grant's 
three  days  at  Chattanooga. 

From  this  time  forward  the  South  was  like  a  be- 
leaguered city,  certain  to  fall  if  not  relieved,  unless, 
indeed,  the  hearts  of  those  who  swayed  the  North- 
ern vote  should  fail  them  at  the  next  election. 


CHAPTER  IX 

FARRAGUT   AND   THE   NAVY:   1863-4 

The  Navy's  task  in  '63  was  complicated  by  the 
many  foreign  vessels  that  ran  only  between  two 
neutral  ports  but  broke  bulk  into  blockade-runners 
at  their  own  port  of  destination.  For  instance,  a 
neutral  vessel,  with  neutral  crew  and  cargo,  would 
leave  a  port  in  Europe  for  a  neutral  port  in  America, 
say,  Nassau  in  the  Bahamas  or  Matamoras  on  the 
Rio  Grande.  She  could  not  be  touched  of  course  at 
either  port  or  anywhere  inside  the  three-mile  limit. 
But  international  law  accepted  the  doctrine  of 
continuous  voyage,  by  which  contraband  could  be 
taken  anywhere  on  the  high  seas,  provided,  of 
course,  that  the  blockader  could  prove  his  case.  If, 
for  example,  there  were  ten  timesias  many  goods 
going  into  Matamoras  as  could  possibly  be  used 
through  that  port  by  Mexico,  then  the  presump- 
tion was  that  nine-tenths  were  contraband.  Pre- 
sumption becoming  proof  by  further  evidence,  the 

807 


308        CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

doctrine  of  continuous  voyage  could  be  used  in 
favor  of  the  blockaders  who  stopped  the  contra- 
band at  sea  between  the  neutral  ports.  The  block- 
ade therefore  required  a  double  line  of  operation: 
one,  the  old  line  along  the  Southern  coast,  the 
other,  the  new  line  out  at  sea,  and  preferably  just 
beyond  the  three-mile  limit  outside  the  original 
port  of  departure,  so  as  to  kill  the  evil  at  its  source. 
Nassau  and  Matamoras  gave  the  coast  blockade 
plenty  of  harassing  work;  Nassau  because  it  was 
"handy  to"  the  Atlantic  ports,  Matamoras 
because  it  was  at  the  mouth  of  the  Rio  Grande, 
over  the  shoals  of  which  the  Union  warships  could 
not  go  to  prevent  contraband  crossing  into  Texas, 
thence  up  to  the  Red  River,  down  to  the  Missis- 
sippi (between  the  Confederate  strongholds  of 
Vicksburg  and  Port  Hudson)  and  on  to  any  other 
part  of  the  South.  But  what  may  be  called  the 
high-seas  blockade  was  no  less  harassing,  compli- 
cated as  it  was  by  the  work  of  Confederate  raiders. 
The  coast  blockade  of  '63  was  marked  by  two 
notable  ship  duiels  and  three  fights  round  Charles- 
ton, then,  as  always,  a  great  storm  center  of  the 
war.  At  the  end  of  January  two  Confederate 
gunboats  under  Commodore  Ingraham  attacked 
the  blockading  flotilla  off  Charleston,  forced  the 


FARRAGUT  AND  THE  NAVY:  1863-4    309 

Mercedita  to  surrender,  badly  mauled  the  Key- 
stone State,  and  damaged  the  Quaker  City.  But, 
though  some  foreign  consuls  and  all  Charleston 
thought  the  blockade  had  been  raised  for  the  time 
being,  it  was  only  bent,  not  broken. 

At  the  end  of  February  the  Union  monitor  Mon- 
tauh  destroyed  the  Confederate  privateer  Nash- 
ville near  Fort  McAllister  on  the  Ogeechee  River  in 
Georgia.  In  April  nine  Union  monitors  steamed 
in  to  test  the  strength  of  Charleston;  but,  as  they 
got  back  more  than  they  could  give,  Admiral  Du 
Pont  wisely  decided  not  to  try  the  fight -to-a-finish 
he  had  meant  to  make  next  morning.  Wassaw 
Sound  in  Georgia  was  the  scene  of  a  desperate  duel 
on  the  seventeenth  of  June,  when  the  Union  moni- 
tor Weehawken  captured  the  old  blockade-runner 
Fingaly  which  had  been  converted  into  the  new 
Confederate  ram  Atlanta.  The  third  week  in  Au- 
gust witnessed  another  bombardment  of  Charles- 
ton, this  time  on  a  larger  scale,  for  a  longer  time, 
and  by  military  as  well  as  naval  means.  But 
Charleston  remained  defiant  and  unconquered  both 
this  year  and  the  next. 

Confederate  raiders  were  at  work  along  the  trade 
routes  of  the  world  in  '63,  doing  much  harm  by 
capture  and  destruction,  and  even  more  by  shaking 


310        CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

the  security  of  the  American  mercantile  marine. 
American  crews  were  hard  to  get  when  so  many 
hands  were  wanted  for  other  war  work ;  and  Ameri- 
can vessels  were  increasingly  apt  to  seek  the  safety 
of  a  neutral  flag. 

Slowly,  and  with  much  perverse  interference  to 
overcome  in  the  com'se  of  its  harassing  duties,  the 
Union  navy  was  getting  the  strangle-hold  that 
killed  the  sea-girt  South.  By  '64  the  North  had 
secured  this  strangle-hold;  and  nothing  but  foreign 
intervention  or  the  political  death  of  the  Northern 
War  Party  could  possibly  shake  it  off.  The  South 
was  feeling  its  practical  enislement  as  never  before. 
The  strong  right  arm  of  the  Union  navy  held  it  fast 
at  every  point  but  three  —  Wilmington,  Charles- 
ton, and  Mobile;  and  round  these  three  the  stern 
blockaders  grew  stronger  every  day.  The  Sabine 
Pass  and  Galveston  also  remained  in  Southern 
hands ;  and  the  border  town  of  Matamoras  still  im- 
ported contraband.  But  these  other  three  points 
were  closely  watched;  and  the  greatlj''  lessened 
contraband  that  did  get  through  them  now  only 
served  the  western  South,  which  had  been  com- 
pletely severed  from  the  eastern  South  by  the  fall 
of  Vicksburg  and  Port  Hudson.  The  left  arm  of 
the  Union  navy  now  held  the  whole  line  of  the 


FARRAGUT  AND  THE  NAVY:  1863-4    311 

Mississippi,  while  the  gi'ipping  hand  held  all  the 
tributary  streams  —  Ohio,  Cumberland,  and  Ten- 
nessee —  from  which  the  Union  armies  were  to  in- 
vade, divide,  and  devastate  the  eastern  South 
this  year. 

Several  Southern  raiders  were  still  at  large  in  '64. 
But  the  most  famous  or  notorious  three  have  each 
their  own  year  of  glory.  The  Florida  belongs  to 
'63,  the  Shenandoah  to  '65.  So  the  one  gTeat  raid- 
ing story  we  have  now  to  tell  is  that  of  the  Alabama, 
the  greatest  of  them  all. 

The  Alabama  was  a  beautiful  thousand-ton  wood- 
en barkentine,  built  by  the  Lairds  at  Birkenhead  in 
'62,  with  standing  rigging  of  wire,  a  single  screw 
driven  by  two  horizontal  three-hundred  horse 
power  engines,  coal  room  for  three  hundi'ed  and 
fifty  tons,  eight  good  guns,  the  heaviest  a  hundred- 
pound  rifle,  and  a  maximum  crew  of  one  hundred 
and  forty-nine  —  all  ranks  and  ratings  —  under 
Captain  Raphael  Semmes,  late  U.  S.  N.  Semmes 
was  not  only  a  very  able  officer  but  an  accomplished 
lawyer,  well  posted  on  belligerent  and  neutral  rights 
at  sea. 

For  nearly  two  years  the  Alabama  roved  the 
oceans  of  the  Old  World  and  the  New,  taking 


312        CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

sixty-six  Union  vessels  valued  at  seven  million 
dollars,  spreading  the  terror  of  her  name  among  all 
the  merchantmen  that  flew  the  Stars  and  Stripes, 
and  infuriating  the  Navy  by  the  wonderful  way  in 
which  she  contrived  to  escape  every  trap  it  set  for 
her.  She  was  designed  for  speed  rather  than  for 
fighting,  and,  with  her  great  spread  of  canvas, 
could  sometimes  work  large  areas  under  sail.  But, 
even  so,  her  runs,  captures,  and  escapes  formed  a 
series  of  adventures  that  no  mere  luck  could  have 
possibly  performed  with  a  fluctuating  foreign  crew 
commanded  by  ex-officers  of  the  Navy.  Her  wan- 
derings took  her  through  nearly  a  hundred  de- 
grees of  latitude,  from  the  coast  of  Scotland  to 
St.  Paul  Island,  south  of  the  Indian  Ocean,  also 
through  more  than  two  hundred  degrees  of  longi- 
tude, from  the  Gulf  of  Mexico  to  the  Cliina  Sea. 
She  captured  "Yankees"  within  one  day's  steam- 
ing of  the  New  York  Navy  Yard  as  well  as  in  the 
Straits  of  Sunda.  West  of  the  Azores  and  oflF  the 
coast  of  Brazil  her  captures  came  so  thick  and  fast 
that  they  might  have  almost  been  a  flock  of  sheep 
run  down  there  by  a  wolf.  Finally,  to  fill  the  cup 
of  wrath  against  her,  she  had  sunk  a  blockader  off 
the  coast  of  Texas,  given  the  slip  to  a  Union  man- 
of-war  at  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope,  and  kept  the 


FARRAGUT  AND  THE  NAVY:  1863-4    313 

Navy  guessing  her  unanswered  riddles  for  two 
whole  years. 

Imagine,  then,  the  keen  elation  with  which  all 
hands  aboard  the  U.  S.  S.  Kearsarge  heard  at  their 
berth  off  Flushing  that  the  Alabama  was  in  port  at 
Cherbourg  on  the  Channel  coast  of  France,  only 
one  day's  sail  southwest!  And  there  she  was  when 
the  Kearsarge  came  to  anchor;  and  every  Northern 
eye  was  turned  to  see  the  ship  of  which  the  world 
had  heard  so  much.  The  Kearsarges  hardly  dared 
to  hope  that  there  would  be  a  fight;  for  they  had 
the  stronger  vessel,  and  now  the  faster  one  as  well. 
The  Alabama  had  been  built  for  speed;  but  she  had 
knocked  about  so  much  without  a  proper  overhaul 
that  her  copper  sheathing  was  in  rags,  while  she 
was  more  or  less  strained  in  nearly  every  other  part. 
The  KearsargCy  on  the  other  hand,  was  in  good  order, 
with  mantlets  of  chain  cable  protecting  her  vitals, 
with  one-third  greater  horse  power,  with  fourteen 
more  men  in  her  crew,  and  with  two  big  pivot  guns 
throwing  eleven-inch  shells  with  great  force  at 
short  ranges.  Moreover,  the  Kearsarge,  with  her 
superior  speed  and  stronger  hull,  could  choose  the 
range  and  risk  close  quarters.  The  Alabamas 
were  also  keen  to  estimate  respective  strengths. 
But  the  French  authorities  naturally  kept  the  two 


314        CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

ships  pretty  far  apart;  so  the  Alabamas  never  saw 
the  chain  mantlets  which  the  Kearsarges  had 
cleverly  hidden  under  a  covering  of  wood  that 
appeared  to  be  flush  with  the  hull. 

The  Kearsarges  had  a  second  and  still  more  elat- 
ing surprise  when  they  heard  the  Alabama  was  com- 
ing out  to  fight.  Semmes  was  apparently  anxious 
to  show  that  his  raider  could  be  as  gallant  in 
fighting  a  man-of-war  as  she  was  effective  in  sink- 
ing merchant  vessels;  so  he  wrote  his  challenge  to 
the  Confederate  Consul  at  Cherbourg,  who  passed 
it  on  to  the  U.  S.  Consul,  who  handed  it  to  Captain 
Winslow,  commanding  the  Kearsarge.  Still,  four 
days  passed  without  the  Alabama;  and  the  Kear- 
sarges were  giving  up  hope,  when,  suddenly,  on 
Sunday  morning,  the  nineteenth  of  June,  just  as 
they  had  rigged  church  and  fallen  in  for  prayers, 
out  came  the  Alabama.  The  Kearsarge  thereupon 
drew  off,  so  that  the  Alabama  could  not  easily  es- 
cape to  neutral  waters  if  the  duel  went  against  her. 
Cherbourg,  of  course,  was  all  agog  to  see  the  fight; 
and  many  thousands  of  people,  some  from  as  far 
as  Paris,  watched  every  move.  An  English  yacht, 
the  Deerhound,  kept  an  oflSng  of  about  a  mile, 
ready  to  rescue  survivors  from  a  watery  grave.  Its 
owner,  with  his  wife  and  family,  had  intended  to 


FARRAGUT  AND  THE  NAVY:  1863-4    315 

stay  ashore  and  go  to  church.  But,  when  they 
heard  the  Alabama  was  really  going  out,  he  put  the 
question  to  the  vote  around  the  breakfast-table, 
whereupon  it  was  carried  unanimously  that  the 
Deerhound  should  go  too. 

When  the  deck-officer  of  the  Kearsarge  sang  out, 
*^ Alabama  / "  Captain  Winslow  put  down  his  prayer- 
book,  seized  his  speaking-trumpet,  and  turned  to 
gain  a  proper  offing,  while  the  drum  beat  to  gen- 
eral quarters  and  the  ship  was  cleared  for  action, 
with  pivot-guns  to  starboard.  The  weather  was 
fine,  with  a  slight  haze,  little  sea,  and  a  light  west 
breeze.  Having  drawn  the  Alabama  far  enough 
to  sea,  the  Kearsarge  turned  toward  her  again, 
showing  the  starboard  bow.  When  at  a  mile  the 
Alabama  fired  her  hundred-pounder.  For  nearly 
the  whole  hour  this  famous  duel  lasted  the  ships 
continued  fighting  in  the  same  way  —  starboard  to 
starboard,  round  and  round  a  circle  from  half  to 
a  quarter  mile  across.  Each  captain  stood  on  the 
horse-block  abreast  the  mizzen-mast  to  direct  the 
fight.  Semmes  presently  called  to  his  executive 
officer:  "Mr.  Kell,  use  solid  shot!  Our  shell  strike 
the  enemy's  side  and  fall  into  the  water"  (after 
bounding  off  the  iron  mantlets  Winslow  had  so 
cleverly  concealed) .    The  Kearsarge' s  gunnery  was 


316        CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

magnificent,  especially  from  the  after-pivot,  which 
Quartermaster  William  Smith  fired  with  deadly 
aim,  even  when  three  of  his  gun's  crew  had  been 
wounded  by  a  shell.  These  three,  strange  to  say, 
were  the  only  casualties  that  occurred  aboard  the 
Kearsarge.  But  at  sea  the  stronger  side  usually 
suffers  much  less  and  the  weaker  much  more  than 
on  land.  The  Alabama  lost  forty :  killed,  drowned, 
and  wounded. 

The  Kearsarges  soon  saw  how  the  fight  was  going 
and  began  to  cheer  each  first-rate  shot.  "That's 
a  good  one !  Now  we  have  her !  Give  her  another 
like  the  last ! "  The  big  eleven-inchers  got  home  re- 
peatedly as  the  range  decreased;  so  much  so  that 
Semmes  ordered  Kell  to  keep  the  Alabama  headed 
for  the  coast  the  next  time  the  circhng  brought  her 
bow  that  way.  This  would  bring  her  port  side  into 
action,  which  was  just  what  Semmes  wanted  now, 
because  she  had  a  dangerous  list  to  starboard,  where 
the  water  was  pouring  through  the  shot-holes.  Kell 
changed  her  course  with  perfect  skill,  righting  the 
helm,  hoisting  the  head-sails,  hauling  the  fore-try- 
sail-sheet well  aft,  and  pivoting  to  port  for  a  broad- 
side delivered  almost  as  quickly  as  if  there  had  not 
been  a  change  at  all.  But  at  this  moment  the  en- 
gineer came  up  to  say  the  water  had  put  his  fires  out 


FARRAGUT  AND  THE  NAVY:  1863-4    317 

and  that  the  ship  was  sinking.  At  the  same  time  a 
strange  thing  happened.  An  early  shot  from  the 
Kearsarge  had  carried  away  the  Alabama  s  colors; 
and  now  the  Alabamans  own  last  broadside  actu- 
ally announced  her  own  defeat  by  "breaking  out'* 
the  special  Stars  and  Stripes  that  Winslow  had 
run  up  his  mizzenmast  on  purpose  to  break  out  in 
case  of  victory.  A  cannon  ball  had  twitched  the 
cord  that  held  the  flag  rolled  up  "in  stops." 

Semmes  sent  his  one  remaining  boat  to  announce 
his  surrender;  threw  his  sword  into  the  sea;  and 
jumped  in  with  the  survivors.  The  Deerhound,  on 
authority  from  Winslow,  had  already  closed  in  to 
the  rescue,  followed  by  two  French  pilot  boats  and 
two  from  the  Kearsarge;  when  suddenly  the  Ala- 
bama, rearing  like  a  stricken  horse,  plunged  to 
her  doom. 

Long  before  the  Alabamans  end  the  Navy  had 
been  preparing  for  the  finishing  blows  against  the 
Southern  ports.  Farragut  had  returned  to  New 
Orleans  in  January,  '64,  hoping  for  immediate 
action.  But  vexatious  delays  at  Washington  post- 
poned his  great  attack  till  August,  when  he 
crowned  his  whole  career  by  his  master-stroke 
against  Mobile.    Grant  was  equally  annoyed  by 


318        CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

this  absurd  delay,  which  was  caused  by  the  ec- 
centric, and  therefore  entirely  wasteful,  Red  River 
Expedition  of  '64,  an  expedition  we  shall  ignore  oth- 
erwise than  by  pointing  out,  in  this  and  the  succeed- 
ing chapters,  that  it  not  only  postponed  the  over- 
due attack  on  Mobile  but  spoilt  Sherman's  grand 
strategy  as  well  as  Farragut's  and  Grant's.  Banks 
commanded  it.  But  by  this  time  even  he  had 
learnt  enough  of  war  to  know  that  it  was  a  totally 
false  move.  So  he  boldly  protested  against  it.  But 
Halleck's  orders,  dictated  by  the  Government, 
were  positive.  So  there  was  nothing  for  it  but  to 
suffer  a  well-deserved  defeat  while  trying  to  kill 
the  dead  and  withering  branches  of  Confederate 
power  beyond  the  Mississippi,  in  order  to  "show 
the  flag  in  Texas"  and  say  "hands  off!"  to  Mexico 
and  France  in  the  least  effective  way  of  all. 

During  this  delay  the  Confederate  ram  Albe- 
marle came  down  the  Roanoke  River,  hoping  to 
break  through  the  local  blockade  in  Albemarle 
Sound  and  so  give  North  Carolina  an  outlet  to  the 
sea.  Two  attempts  against  Newbern,  which  closed 
the  way  out  to  Pamlico  Sound,  had  failed;  but 
now  (the  fifth  of  May)  great  hopes  were  set  upon 
the  Albemarle.  At  first  she  seemed  impregnable; 
and  the  Federal  shot  and  shell  glanced  harmlessly 


FARRAGUT  AND  THE  NAVY:  1863-4    319 

off  her  iron  sides.  But  presently  Commander  Roe 
of  the  Sassacus  (a  hght-draft,  pair-paddle,  double- 
ender  gunboat)  getting  at  right  angles  to  her,  or- 
dered his  engineer  to  stuff  the  fires  with  oiled  waste 
and  keep  the  throttle  open.  "All  hands,  lie  down!  " 
shouted  Roe,  as  the  throbbing  engines  drove  his 
vessel  to  the  charge.  Then  came  an  earthquake 
shock :  the  Sassacus  crashed  her  bronze  beak  into 
the  Albemarle's  side.  Both  vessels  were  disabled; 
a  shell  from  the  Albemarle  burst  the  boilers  of  the 
Sassacus,  scalding  the  engineers.  But  the  rest 
fought  off  the  attempt  made  by  the  Albemarles  to 
board.  Presently  the  furious  opponents  drifted 
apart;  and  the  Albemarle,  unable  to  face  her  other 
enemies,  took  refuge  upstream.  There,  on  the 
twenty-seventh  of  October,  she  was  heroically  at- 
tacked and  sunk  by  Lieutenant  W.  B.  Gushing, 
U.  S.  N.,  with  a  spar  torpedo  projecting  from  a 
little  steam  launch.  Gushing  himself  swam  off 
through  a  hail  of  bullets,  worked  his  way  through 
the  woods,  seized  a  skiff  belonging  to  one  of  the 
enemy's  outposts,  and  reached  the  flagship  half 
dead  but  wholly  triumphant. 

Between   the  Albemarle's  two  fights   Farragut 
took  Mobile  after  a  magnificent  action  on  the  fifth 


320        CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

of  August.  There  were  batteries  ashore,  torpedoes 
across  the  channel,  the  Tennessee  ram  and  other 
Confederate  vessels  waiting  on  the  flank:  three 
kinds  of  danger  to  the  Union  fleet  if  one  false  move- 
ment had  been  made.  But  Farragut's  touch  was 
sure.  He  sent  his  ironclads  through  next  to  the 
batteries,  which  were  only  really  dangerous  on  one 
side.  This  protected  the  wooden  ships  against  the 
batteries  and  the  ironclads  against  the  torpedoes; 
for  the  Confederates  had  to  leave  part  of  the  fair- 
way clear  in  order  to  use  it  themselves.  Through 
this  narrow  channel  the  four  strongly  armored 
monitors  led  the  desperate  way,  a  little  ahead  and 
to  starboard  of  the  wooden  vessels,  which  followed 
in  pairs,  each  pair  lashed  together,  with  the  stronger 
on  the  starboard  side,  next  to  Fort  Morgan. 

The  Confederates  in  Fort  Morgan,  and  in  the 
small  and  distant  Fort  Powell  on  the  other  side, 
hardly  reached  a  thousand  men.  Their  force  afloat 
was  also  comparatively  small:  the  ironclad  ram 
Tennessee  and  three  side-wheeler  gunboats.  But 
the  great  strength  of  their  position  and  the  many 
dangers  to  a  hostile  fleet  combined  to  make  Farra- 
gut's attack  a  very  serious  operation,  even  vnXh 
his  four  monitors,  eight  screw  sloops,  and  four 
smaller  vessels.    The  Union  army,  which  took  no 


FARRAGUT  AND  THE  NAVY:  1863-4    321 

part  in  this  great  attack,  was  over  five  thou- 
sand strong,  and  lost  only  seven  men  in  the  land 
bombardment  later  on. 

Farragut  crossed  the  bar  in  the  Hartford  at  ten 
past  six  in  the  morning  with  the  young  flood  tide 
and  a  westerly  breeze  to  blow  the  smoke  against 
Fort  Morgan.  All  his  ships  ran  up  the  Stars  and 
Stripes  not  only  at  the  peak,  as  usual,  but  at  each 
mast-head  as  well.  Farragut  himself  at  first  took 
post  in  the  port  main  rigging.  But  as  the  smoke  of 
battle  rose  around  him  he  climbed  higher  and 
higher  till  he  got  close  under  the  maintop,  where 
a  seaman,  sent  up  by  Captain  Drayton,  lashed  him 
on  securely. 

All  went  well  amid  the  furious  cannonade  till  the 
monitor  Tecumseh,  taking  the  wrong  side  of  the 
channel  buoy  in  her  anxiety  to  ram  the  Tennes- 
see, ran  over  the  torpedoes,  was  horribly  holed  by 
the  explosion,  and  plunged  head-foremost  to  the 
bottom,  her  screw  madly  whirling  in  the  air.  Nor 
was  this  the  worst;  for  the  Tecumseh* s  mistake  had 
thrown  the  other  monitors  out  of  their  proper 
line-ahead,  athwart  the  wooden  ships,  which  be- 
gan to  slow  and  swing  about  in  some  confusion. 
The  Confederates  redoubled  their  fire.  Ahead  lay 
the   fatal   torpedoes.     For  a   moment  Farragut 


322        CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

could  not  decide  whether  to  risk  an  advance  at  all 
costs  or  to  turn  back  beaten.  He  was  a  very  de- 
vout as  well  as  a  most  determined  man;  and  his 
simple  prayer,  "O  God,  shall  I  go  on?"  seemed 
answered  by  the  echo  of  his  soul,  "Go  on!"  So  on 
he  went,  not  in  unreflecting  exaltation,  but  in  ex- 
altation based  on  knowledge  and  on  skill.  Like 
Cromwell,  he  might  well  have  said,  "Trust  in  the 
Lord  and  keep  your  powder  dry!"  For  he  had 
done  all  that  naval  foresight  could  have  done  to 
ensure  success.  And  now,  in  one  lightning  flash 
of  genius,  he  reviewed  the  situation.  He  knew  the 
torpedoes  of  his  day  were  often  unreliable,  that 
they  exploded  only  on  a  special  kind  of  shock,  that 
those  which  did  explode  could  not  be  replaced  in 
action,  that  they  were  all  fixed  to  their  own  spots, 
and  that  if  one  ship  was  blown  up  her  next-astern 
would  get  through  safely. 

The  Brooklyn,  his  next-ahead,  was  in  his  way. 
So  he  ordered  the  flagship  Hartford  and  her  lashed- 
together  consort,  the  double-ender  Metacomet,  to 
use,  the  one  her  screw,  the  other  her  paddles,  in 
opposite  directions,  till  he  had  cleared  the  Brook- 
lyn's stern.  As  he  drew  clear  and  headed  for  the 
danger-channel  a  shoutwent  up  from  iheBrooklyn's 
deck  —  "'ware  torpedoes!"     But  Farragut,   his 


FARRAGUT  AND  THE  NAVY:  1863-4    323 

mind  made  up,  instantly  roared  back  —  "Damn 
the  torpedoes!"  Then,  turning  to  the  Hartford's 
and  MetacomeVs  decks,  he  called  his  orders  down: 
"Four  bells!  Captain  Drayton,  go  ahead!  Cap- 
tain Jouett,  full  speed!"  In  answer  to  the  order 
of  "four  bells"  the  engines  worked  their  very  ut- 
most and  the  two  vessels  dashed  ahead.  Torpe- 
does knocked  against  the  bottom  and  some  of  the 
primers  actually  snapped.  But  nothing  exploded; 
and  Farragut  won  through. 

Inside  the  harbor  the  Tennessee  fought  hard 
against  the  overwhelming  Union  fleet.  But  her  low- 
powered  engines  gave  her  no  chance  at  quick  ma- 
neuvers. Three  vessels  rammed  her  in  succession; 
and  she  v/as  forced  to  surrender. 

After  this  purely  naval  victory  on  the  fifth  of 
August,  General  Granger's  troops  invested  Fort 
Morgan,  which,  becoming  the  target  of  an  irresist- 
ible converging  fire  from  both  land  and  sea  on  the 
twenty-second,  surrendered  on  the  twenty-third. 

The  next  objective  of  a  joint  expedition  was  Fort 
Fisher,  which  stood  at  the  end  of  a  long,  low  tongue 
of  land  between  the  sea  and  Cape  Fear  River. 
Fort  Fisher  guarded  the  entrance  to  Wilmington 
in  North  Carolina,  the  port,  above  all  others,  from 
which  the  Confederate  armies  drew  their  oversea 


324        CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

supplies.  Lee  wrote  to  Colonel  Lamb,  its  com- 
mandant, saying  that  he  could  not  subsist  if  it  was 
taken.  Lamb  had  less  than  two  thousand  men  in 
the  fort;  but  there  were  six  thousand  more  forming 
an  army  of  support  outside.  The  Confederates, 
however,  had  no  naval  force  to  speak  of,  while  the 
Union  fleet,  commanded  by  Admiral  Porter,  was 
the  largest  that  had  ever  yet  assembled  under  the 
Stars  and  Stripes.  There  were  nearly  sixty  fighting 
vessels  of  all  kinds,  including  five  new  ironclads  and 
the  three  finest  new  frigates.  The  guns  that  were 
carried  exceeded  six  hundred. 

There  was  also  a  mine  ship,  the  old  Louisiana, 
stuffed  chock-a-block  with  powder  to  blow  in  the 
side  of  the  fort.  The  Washington  wiseacres  set 
great  store  on  this  new  mine  of  theirs.  It  was,  of 
course,  to  end  the  war.  But  naval  and  military  ex- 
perts on  the  spot  were  more  than  doubtful.  On  the 
night  of  the  twenty-third  of  December  the  Louisi- 
ana was  safely  worked  in  near  the  fort  by  brave 
Commander  Rhind,  who  fired  the  slow  match  and 
escaped  unhurt  with  his  devoted  crew  of  volunteers. 
A  tremendous  explosion  followed.  But,  as  there  was 
nothing  to  drive  the  force  of  it  against  the  walls,  it 
simply  resulted  in  an  enormous  flurry  of  water,  mud, 
sand,  earth,  and  bits  of  flaming  wreckage. 


FARRAGUT  AND  THE  NAVY:  1863-4    325 

Next  morning  the  fleet  bombarded  with  such 
success  as  to  silence  many  of  the  guns  opposed  to 
them.  But  on  Christmas  Day  General  Weitzel 
reported  that  an  assault  would  fail;  whereupon 
General  Butler  concurred  and  retreated,  much  to 
the  rage  of  the  fleet,  which  thought  quite  otherwise. 

In  a  few  days  General  Terry  arrived  with  the 
same  white  troops  reinforced  by  two  small  colored 
brigades,  making  a  total  of  eight  thousand  men. 
To  these  Porter,  strongly  reinforced,  added  a  naval 
brigade,  two  thousand  strong,  that  volunteered  to 
storm  the  sea  face  of  Fort  Fisher.  These  gallant 
men  had  only  cutlasses  and  pistols  —  except  the 
four  hundred  marines,  who  carried  bayonets  and 
rifles.  They  were  a  scratch  lot,  from  the  soldier's 
point  of  view,  never  having  been  landed  together 
as  a  single  unit  till  called  upon  to  assault  the  most 
dangerous  features  of  the  fort.  Yet,  though  they 
were  repulsed  with  considerable  loss,  they  greatly 
helped  to  win  the  day  by  obliging  the  defenders  to 
divide  their  forces.  As  Terry's  army  was,  by  itself, 
four  or  five  times  stronger  than  Lamb's  entire 
command  the  military  stormers  succeeded  in  fight- 
ing their  way  through  every  line  of  defense  and 
compelling  a  surrender.  They  did  exceedingly 
well.    But  their  rear  was  safe,  because  Bragg  had 


326        CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

withdrawn  the  supporting  army  for  service  else- 
where; while,  in  their  front,  the  enemy  defenses  had 
been  almost  torn  out  by  the  roots  in  many  places 
under  the  terrific  converging  fire  of  six  hundred 
naval  guns  for  three  successive  days. 

When  Fort  Fisher  surrendered  on  the  fifteenth 
of  January  (1865)  the  exhausted  South  had  only 
one  good  port  and  one  good  raider  left :  Charleston 
and  the  Shenandoah. 


CHAPTER  X 

GRANT  ATTACKS  THE  FRONT:  1864 

On  March  9,  1864,  at  the  Executive  Mansion,  and 
in  the  presence  of  all  the  Cabinet  Ministers,  Lin- 
coln handed  Grant  the  Lieutenant-General's  com- 
mission which  made  him  Commander-in-Chief  of 
all  the  Union  armies  —  a  commission  such  as  no 
one  else  had  held  since  Washington.  On  April  9, 
1865,  Grant  received  the  surrender  of  Lee  at  Appo- 
mattox; and  the  four  years  war  was  ended  by  a 
thirteen  months  campaign. 

Victor  of  the  River  War  in  '63,  Grant  moved 
his  headquarters  from  Chattanooga  to  Nashville 
soon  before  Christmas.  He  then  expected  not  only 
to  lead  the  river  armies  against  Atlanta  in  '64  but, 
at  the  same  time,  to  send  another  army  against 
Mobile,  where  it  could  act  in  conjunction  with 
the  naval  forces  under  Farragut's  command. 

He   consequently   made   a   midwinter   tour  of 

327 


328        CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

inspection:  southeast  to  Chattanooga,  northeast 
to  Knoxville  and  Cumberland  Gap,  northwest  to 
Lexington  and  Louisville,  thence  south,  straight 
back  to  Nashville.  This  satisfied  him  that  his  main 
positions  were  properly  taken  and  held,  and  that  a 
well-concerted  drive  would  clear  his  own  strategic 
area  of  all  but  Forrest's  elusive  cavalry. 

It  was  the  hardest  winter  known  for  many  years. 
The  sticky  clay  roads  round  Cumberland  Gap  had 
been  churned  by  wheels  and  pitted  by  innumer- 
able feet  throughout  the  autumn  rains.  Now  they 
were  frozen  solid  and  horribly  encumbered  by  de- 
bris mixed  up  with  thousands  upon  thousands  of 
perished  mules  and  horses.  Grant  regretted  this 
terrible  wastage  of  animals  as  much  in  a  personal 
as  in  a  military  way;  for,  like  nearly  all  great  men, 
his  sympathies  were  broad  enough  to  make  him 
compassionate  toward  every  kind  of  sentient  life. 
No  Arab  ever  loved  his  horse  better  than  Grant 
loved  his  splendid  charger  Cincinnati,  the  worthy 
counterpart  of  Traveler,  Lee's  magnificent  gray. 

Summoned  to  Washington  in  March,  Grant, 
after  one  scrutinizing  look  at  the  political  world, 
then  and  there  made  up  his  steadfast  mind  that 
no  commander-in-chief  could  ever  carry  out  his 
own  plans  from  any  distant  point;  for,  even  in 


GRANT  ATTACKS  THE  FRONT    329 

this  fourth  year  of  the  war,  civilian  interference 
was  still  being  practiced  in  defiance  of  naval 
and  military  facts  and  needs,  and  of  some  very 
serious  dangers. 

Lincoln  stood  wisely  for  civil  control.  But  even 
he  could  not  resist  the  perverting  pressure  in  favor 
of  the  disastrous  Red  River  Expedition,  against 
which  even  Banks  protested.  Public  and  Govern- 
ment alike  desired  to  give  the  French  fair  warning 
that  the  establishment  of  an  Imperial  Mexico,  es- 
pecially by  means  of  foreign  intervention,  was  re- 
garded as  a  semi-hostile  act.  There  were  two  en- 
tirely different  ways  in  which  this  warning  could 
be  given:  one  completely  effective  without  being 
provocative,  the  other  provocative  without  being 
in  the  very  least  degree  effective.  The  only  effec- 
tive way  was  to  win  the  war;  and  the  best  way  to 
win  the  war  was  to  strike  straight  at  the  heart  of 
the  South  with  all  the  Union  forces.  The  most  in- 
effective way  was  to  withdraw  Union  forces  from 
the  heart  of  the  war,  send  them  off  at  a  wasteful 
tangent,  misuse  them  in  eccentric  operations  just 
where  they  would  give  most  offense  to  the  French, 
and  then  expose  them  to  what,  at  best,  could  only 
be  a  detrimental  victory,  and  to  what  would  much 
more  likely  be  defeat,  if  not  disaster. 


330        CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

Yet,  to  Grant's  and  Farragut's  and  every  other 
soldier's  and  sailor's  disgust,  this  worst  way  of  all 
was  chosen;  and  Banks's  forty  thousand  sorely 
needed  veterans  were  sent  to  their  double  defeat 
at  Sabine  Cross  Roads  and  Pleasant  Hill  on  the 
eighth  and  ninth  of  April,  while  Porter's  invaluable 
fleet  and  the  no  less  indispensable  transports  were 
nearly  lost  altogether  owing  to  the  long-foretold 
fall  of  the  dangerous  Red  River.  The  one  success 
of  this  whole  disastrous  affair  was  the  admirable 
work  of  Colonel  Joseph  Bailey,  who  dammed  the 
water  up  just  in  time  to  let  the  rapidly  stranding 
vessels  slide  into  safety  through  a  very  narrow  sluice. 

Even  the  Red  River  lesson  was  thrown  away  on 
Stanton,  whose  interference  continued  to  the  bitter 
end,  except  when  checked  by  Lincoln  or  countered 
by  Grant  and  Sherman  in  the  field.  When  Grant 
was  starting  on  his  tour  of  inspection  he  found  that 
Stanton  had  forbidden  all  War  Department  opera- 
tors to  let  commanding  generals  use  the  official 
cipher  except  when  in  communication  with  him- 
self. There  were  to  be  no  secrets  at  the  front  be- 
tween the  commanding  generals,  even  on  matters 
of  immediate  life  and  death,  unless  they  were  first 
approved  by  Stanton  at  his  leisure.  The  fact 
that  the  enemy  could   use  unciphered  messages 


GRANT  ATTACKS  THE  FRONT    331 

was  nothing  in  his  autocratic  eyes.  Nor  did  it 
prick  his  conscience  to  change  the  wording  in 
ways  that  bewildered  his  own  side  and  served 
the  enemy's  turn. 

When  Grant  took  the  cipher  Stanton  ordered 
the  operator  to  be  dismissed.  Grant  thereupon 
shouldered  the  responsibility,  saying  that  Stanton 
would  have  to  punish  him  if  any  one  was  punished. 
Then  Stanton  gave  in.  Grant  saw  through  him 
clearly.  "Mr.  Stanton  never  questioned  his  own 
authority  to  command,  unless  resisted.  He  felt  no 
hesitation  in  assuming  the  functions  of  the  Execu- 
tive or  in  acting  without  advising  with  him.  .  .  . 
He  was  very  timid,  and  it  was  impossible  for  him 
to  avoid  interfering  with  the  armies  covering  the 
capital  when  it  was  sought  to  defend  it  by  an  offen- 
sive movement  against  the  army  defending  the 
Confederate  capital.  The  enemy  would  not  have 
been  in  danger  if  Mr.  Stanton  had  been  in  the  field." 

Stanton  was  unteachable.  He  never  learnt 
where  control  ended  and  disabling  interference 
began.  In  the  very  critical  month  of  August,  '64, 
he  interfered  with  Hunter  to  such  an  extent  that 
this  patriotic  general  had  to  tell  Grant  "he  was  so 
embarrassed  with  orders  from  Washington  that 
he  had  lost  all  trace  of  the  enemy."    Nor  was  that 


332        CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

the  end  of  Stanton's  interference  with  the  opera- 
tions in  the  Shenandoah  Valley.  Lincoln's  own 
cipher  letter  to  Grant  on  the  third  of  August  shows 
what  both  these  great  men  had  to  suffer  from  the 
weak  link  in  the  chain  between  them. 

I  have  seen  your  despatch  in  which  you  say,  "I  want 
Sheridan  put  in  command  of  all  the  troops  in  the  field, 
with  instructions  to  put  himself  south  of  the  enemy, 
and  follow  him  to  the  death.  Wherever  the  enemy 
goes,  let  our  troops  go  also."  This,  I  think,  is  exactly 
right,  as  to  how  our  forces  should  move.  But  please 
look  over  the  despatches  you  may  have  received  from 
here,  even  since  you  made  that  order,  and  discover,  if 
you  can,  that  there  is  any  idea  in  the  head  of  any  one 
here  of  "putting  our  army  south  of  the  enemy,"  or  of 
"following  him  to  the  death"  in  any  direction.  I  re- 
peat to  you  it  will  neither  be  done  or  attempted  unless 
you  watch  it  every  day,  and  hour,  and  force  it. 

The  experts  of  the  loyal  North  were  partly  com- 
forted by  knowing  that  Davis  and  his  ministers  had 
interfered  with  Jackson,  that  during  the  present 
campaign  they  made  a  crucial  mistake  about  John- 
ston, and  that  they  failed  to  give  Lee  the  supreme 
command  until  it  was  too  late.  But  no  Southern 
Secretary  went  quite  so  far  as  Stanton,  who  actu- 
ally falsified  Grant's  order  to  Sheridan  at  the  crisis 
of  the  Valley   campaign  in  October.     Here  are 


GRANT  ATTACKS  THE  FRONT    333 

Grant's  own  words :  "  This  order  had  to  go  through 
Washington,  where  it  was  intercepted;  and  when 
Sheridan  received  what  purported  to  be  a  state- 
ment of  what  I  wanted  him  to  do  it  was  something 
entirely  different." 

Nor  was  Stanton  the  only  responsible  civilian  to 
interfere  with  Grant.  There  was  no  government 
press  censorship  —  perhaps,  in  this  peculiar  war, 
there  could  not  be  one.  So  the  only  safety  was  un- 
ceasing care,  even  in  cases  vouched  for  by  civilians 
of  high  official  standing.  When  Grant  was  be- 
ginning the  great  campaign  of  '64  the  Honorable 
Elihu  B.  Washburne,  afterwards  United  States 
Minister  to  France,  introduced  one  Swinton  as  the 
prospective  historian  of  the  war.  On  this  under- 
standing Swinton  accompanied  the  army.  One 
night  Grant  gave  verbal  orders  to  the  staff  officer 
on  duty.  Three  days  later  these  orders  appeared 
in  a  Richmond  paper.  Shortly  afterwards,  in  the 
midst  of  the  Wilderness  battle,  Swinton  was  found 
eavesdropping  behind  a  stump  during  a  midnight 
conference  at  headquarters.  Sent  off  with  a  serious 
warning,  he  next  appeared,  in  another  place,  as  a 
prisoner  condemned  to  death  for  spying.  Grant, 
satisfied  that  he  was  not  bent  on  getting  news  for 
the  enemy  in  particular,  but  only  for  the  press  in 


334        CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

general,  released  and  expelled  him  with  such  a 
warning  this  time  that  he  never  once  came  back. 

The  Union  forces  at  the  front  were  about  twice 
the  corresponding  forces  of  the  South.  Sherman, 
who  commanded  the  river  armies  after  Grant's 
transfer  to  Virginia,  says:  *' I  always  estimated  my 
force  at  about  double,  and  could  afford  to  lose  two 
to  one  without  disturbing  our  relative  proportion." 
In  Virginia  the  Army  of  the  Potomac  under  Meade 
and  the  new  Army  of  the  James  under  Butler,  both 
under  Grant's  immediate  command,  totaled  over  a 
hundred  and  fifty  thousand  men  against  the  ninety 
thousand  under  Lee.  These  odds  of  five  to  three 
remained  the  same  when  a  hundred  and  ten  thou- 
sand Federals  went  into  winter  quarters  against 
sixty-six  thousand  Confederates  at  Petersburg. 
But,  when  the  naval  odds  of  more  than  ten  to  one 
in  favor  of  the  North  are  added  in,  the  general  odds 
of  two  to  one  are  reached  on  tliis  as  well  as  other 
scenes  of  action.  In  reserves  the  odds  were  very 
much  greater;  for  while  the  South  was  getting  down 
to  its  last  available  man  the  North  began  the  fol- 
lowing year  with  nearly  one  million  in  the  forces 
and  two  millions  on  the  registered  reserve.  Thus, 
even  supposing  that  half  the  reserves  were  unfit 


GRANT  ATTACKS  THE  FRONT    335 

for  active  service,  the  man-power  odds  against  the 
South  were  these:  two  to  one  in  arms  at  the  be- 
ginning of  the  great  campaign,  five  to  one  at  the 
end  of  it,  and  ten  to  one  if  the  fit  reserves  were  all 
included.  The  odds  in  transportation  by  land,  and 
very  much  more  so  by  water,  were  even  greater  at 
corresponding  times;  while  the  odds  in  all  the  other 
resources  which  could  be  turned  to  warlike  ends 
were  greater  still. 

The  Southern  situation,  therefore,  was  not  en- 
couraging from  the  naval  and  military  point  of 
view.  The  border  States  had  long  been  lost,  then 
the  trans-Mississippi;  and  now  the  whole  river 
area  was  held  as  a  base  by  the  North.  Only  five 
States  remained  effective:  Alabama,  Georgia,  the 
Carohnas,  and  Virginia.  These  formed  an  irregu- 
lar oblong  of  about  two  hundred  thousand  square 
miles  between  the  Appalachians  and  the  sea. 
There  were  a  good  eight  hundred  Confederate 
miles  from  the  Shenandoah  Valley  to  Mobile.  But 
the  three  hundred  miles  across  the  oblong,  even 
in  its  widest  part,  were  everywhere  threatened 
and  in  some  places  held  by  the  North.  The  whole 
coast  was  more  closely  blockaded  than  ever;  and 
only  three  ports  remained  with  their  defenses  still 
in  Southern  hands:  Wilmington,  Charleston,  and 


336        CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

Mobile.  Alabama  was  threatened  by  land  and  sea 
from  the  lower  Mississippi  and  the  Gulf.  Georgia 
was  threatened  by  Sherman's  main  body  in  south- 
eastern Tennessee.  The  Carolinas  were  in  less  im- 
mediate danger.  But  they  were  menaced  both 
from  the  mountains  and  the  sea;  and  if  the  Union 
forces  conquered  Virginia  and  Georgia,  then  the 
Carolinas  were  certain  to  be  ground  into  subjuga- 
tion between  Grant's  victorious  forces  on  the  north 
and  Sherman's  on  the  south. 

Grant  fixed  his  own  headquarters  with  the  Army 
of  the  Potomac  at  Culpeper  Court  House,  north  of 
the  Rapidan.  Lee's  Army  of  Northern  Virginia 
was  at  Orange  Court  House,  over  twenty  miles 
south.  Grant,  taking  his  own  headquarters  as  the 
center,  regarded  Butler's  Army  of  the  James  as  the 
left  wing,  which  could  unite  with  the  center  round 
Richmond  and  Petersburg.  The  long  right  wing 
ran  through  the  whole  of  West  Virginia,  Kentucky, 
and  Tennessee,  clear  away  to  Memphis,  with  its 
own  headquarters  at  Chattanooga.  There  Sherman 
faced  Johnston,  who  occupied  a  strong  position  at 
Dalton,  over  thirty  miles  southeast.  The  great 
objectives  were,  of  course,  the  two  main  Southern 
armies  under  Lee  and  Johnston,  with  Richmond 
and  Atlanta  as  the  chief  positions  to  be  gained. 


GRANT  ATTACKS  THE  FRONT    337 

All  other  Union  forces  were  regarded  as  attack- 
ing the  South  from  the  rear.  Wherever  coast  garri- 
sons could  help  to  tighten  the  blockade  or  seriously 
distract  Confederate  attention  they  were  left  to  do 
so.  Wherever  they  coidd  not  they  were  either  de- 
pleted for  the  front  or  sent  there  bodily.  The 
principal  Union  field  force  attacking  from  the  rear 
was  to  have  been  formed  by  Banks's  forty  thou- 
sand veterans  in  conjunction  with  Farragut's  fleet 
against  Mobile.  But  the  Red  River  Expedition 
spoilt  that  combination  in  the  spring  and  post- 
poned it  till  August,  when  Farragut  did  nearly  all 
the  fighting,  and  the  cooperating  army  was  far  too 
late  to  produce  the  distracting  eflFect  that  Grant 
had  originally  planned. 

General  Franz  Sigel  was  sent  to  the  upper  Shen- 
andoah Valley,  both  to  guard  that  approach  on 
Washington  and  to  destroy  the  resources  on  which 
Lee's  army  so  greatly  relied.  General  George 
Crook  was  given  a  mounted  column  to  operate 
from  southern  West  Virginia  against  the  line  of 
rails  running  toward  Tennessee  through  the  lower 
end  of  the  Valley. 

The  most  notable  new  general  was  Philip  H. 
Sheridan,  whom  Grant  selected  for  the  cavalry 
command.    Sheridan  was  thirty-three,  two  years 


338        CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

older  than  his  Southern  rival,  Stuart,  and,  like 
him,  a  young  regular  officer  who  rose  to  well-earned 
fame  the  moment  his  first  great  chance  occurred. 

Sherman  we  have  met  from  the  very  beginning 
of  the  war  and  followed  throughout  its  course. 
He  was  continually  rising  to  more  and  more  re- 
sponsible command;  but  it  was  only  now  that  he 
became  the  virtual  Commander-in-Chief  of  all  the 
river  armies  and  the  chosen  cooperator  with  Grant 
on  a  universal  scale.  He  was  of  the  old  original 
stock,  his  first  American  ancestors  having  emi- 
grated from  England  in  1634.  An  old  regular,  with 
special  knowledge  of  the  South,  and  in  the  fullness 
of  his  powers  at  the  age  of  forty-four,  he  had  de- 
veloped with  the  war  till  there  was  no  position 
which  he  could  not  fill  to  the  best  advantage  of 
the  service. 

Grant  fixed  the  fourth  of  May  for  the  combined 
advance  of  all  the  converging  forces  of  invasion. 
There  were  two  weak  points  where  the  Union 
armies  failed:  one  in  the  farthest  south,  where,  as 
we  have  so  often  seen.  Banks  could  not  attack 
Mobile  owing  to  his  absence  at  Red  River;  the 
other  in  the  farthest  north,  where  Sigel  was  badly 
beaten  and  replaced  by  Hunter.  Here,  after  much 
disabling  interference  at  the  hands  of  Stanton, 


GRANT  ATTACKS  THE  FRONT    339 

Hunter  was  succeeded  by  Sheridan,  whom  Grant 
himself  directed  with  consummate  skill.  There 
were  also  two  Confederate  thorns  in  the  Federal 
side:  Forrest's  cavalry  in  Sherman's  rear,  Mosby's 
cavalry  in  Grant's.  Forrest  roved  about  the  river 
area,  snapping  up  small  garrisons,  cutting  com- 
munications, and  doing  a  good  deal  of  damage 
right  up  to  the  Ohio.  Mosby,  with  a  much  smaller 
but  equally  efficient  force,  actually  raided  to  and 
fro  in  Grant's  immediate  rear;  and  on  one  occasion 
nearly  captured  Grant  himself  just  on  the  eve  of 
the  opening  move.  As  Grant's  unguarded  special 
train  from  Washington  pulled  up  at  Warrenton 
Junction,  where  there  was  only  one  Union  official, 
Mosby's  men  had  just  crossed  the  track  in  pursuit 
of  some  Federal  cavalry. 

But  neither  these  two  Confederate  thorns  in  the 
side  nor  the  more  serious  Federal  failures  could  stop 
the  general  advance.  Nor  yet  could  Butler's  lack 
of  success  on  the  James.  Butler  had  seized  and 
fortified  an  exceedingly  strong  defensive  position  at 
Bermuda  Hundred  on  a  peninsula,  with  navigable 
water  on  both  flanks  and  in  rear,  and  a  very  narrow 
neck  of  land  in  iront.  The  only  trouble  was  that 
it  was  as  hard  for  him  to  surmount  the  Confeder- 
ate front  across  the  same  narrow  neck  as  it  was 


340        CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

for  the  enemy  to  surmount  his  own.  He  was,  in 
fact,  bottled  up,  with  the  cork  in  the  enemy's 
hands.  He  did  send  out  cavalry  from  SufiPolk  to 
cut  the  rails  south  of  Petersburg.  But  no  perma- 
nent damage  was  done  there.  Petersburg  itself, 
which  at  that  time  was  almost  defenseless,  was  not 
taken.  And  in  the  middle  of  the  month  Beaure- 
gard attacked  Butler  so  vigorously  as  to  make  the 
Army  of  the  James  rather  a  passive  than  an  active 
force  till  it  was  presently  absorbed  by  Grant  when 
he  arrived  before  Richmond  in  June. 

Grant  felt  perfect  confidence  only  in  four  prime 
elements  of  victory :  first,  in  his  ability  to  wear  Lee 
down  by  sheer  attrition  if  other  means  failed;  next, 
in  his  own  magnificent  army;  then  in  Sherman's; 
and  lastly  in  Sheridan's  cavalry.  His  supply  and 
transport  services  were  nearly  perfect,  even  in  his 
own  most  critical  eyes.  "There  never  was  a  corps 
better  organized  than  was  the  quartermaster's 
corps  with  the  Army  of  the  Potomac  in  1864." 
His  field  engineering  and  his  signal  service  were 
also  exceedingly  good.  At  every  halt  the  army 
threw  up  earth  and  timber  entrenchments  with 
wonderful  rapidity  and  skill.  At  the  same  time  the 
telegraph  and  signal  corps  was  busy  laying  insu- 
lated wires  by  means  of  reels  on  muleback.  Parallel 


GRANT  ATTACKS  THE  FRONT    341 

lines  would  be  led  to  the  rear  of  each  brigade  till 
quite  clear,  when  their  ends  would  be  joined  by 
a  wire  at  right  angles,  from  which  headquarters 
could  communicate  with  every  unit  at  the  front. 
Sherman's  army  was  equally  efficient,  and  Sheri- 
dan's cavalry  soon  proved  that  sweeping  raids 
could  be  carried  out  by  one  side  as  well  as  by 
the  other. 

Crossing  the  Rapidan  at  the  Germanna  Ford, 
Grant  marched  south  through  the  Wilderness  on 
the  fifth  of  May.  The  Wilderness  was  densely 
wooded;  the  roads  were  few  and  bad;  the  clearings 
rare  and  too  small  for  large  units.  When  Lee  at- 
tacked from  the  west  and  Grant  turned  to  face  him 
the  fighting  soon  became  desperate,  close,  and 
somewhat  confused.  Neither  side  gained  any  sub- 
stantial advantage  on  the  first  day.  Next  morning 
Grant,  preparing  to  attack  at  five,  was  forestalled 
by  Lee,  who  wished  to  keep  him  at  arm's  length 
till  Longstreet  came  up  on  the  southern  flank. 
Again  the  opposing  armies  closed  and  fought  with 
the  greatest  determination  for  over  an  hour,  when 
the  Confederates  fell  back  in  some  confusion. 
Then  Longstreet  arrived  and  restored  the  battle 
till  he  was  severely  wounded.  After  this  Lee  took 
command  of  his  right,  or  southern,  wing  and  kept 


342        CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

up  the  fight  all  day.  Meanwhile  Sheridan  had 
countered  the  Confederate  cavalry  under  Stuart, 
which  had  been  trying  to  swing  round  the  same 
southern  flank.  The  main  bodies  of  infantry 
swayed  back  and  forth  till  dark,  with  the  woods 
and  breastworks  on  fire  in  several  places,  and 
many  of  the  wounded  smothering  in  the  smoke. 

On  the  seventh  reassuring  news  came  in  from 
Sherman  and  Butler,  Sheridan  drove  off  the  Con- 
federate cavalry  at  Todd's  Tavern,  and  the  south- 
ward march  continued.  As  Grant  and  Meade  rode 
south  that  evening,  past  Hancock's  corps,  and  the 
men  saw  they  were  heading  straight  for  Richmond, 
there  was  such  a  burst  of  cheering  that  the  Con- 
federates, thinking  it  meant  a  night  attack,  del- 
uged the  intervening  woods  with  a  heavy  barrage 
till  they  found  out  their  mistake. 

The  race  for  Richmond  continued  on  the  eighth, 
each  army  trying  to  get  south  of  the  other  without 
exposing  itself  to  a  flank  attack.  Grant  had  sent 
his  wagon  trains  farther  east,  to  move  south  on 
parallel  roads  and  keep  those  nearest  Lee  quite 
clear  for  fighting.  This  movement  at  first  led  Lee 
to  suspect  a  Federal  retirement  on  Fredericksburg, 
which  caused  him  to  send  Longstreet's  corps  south 
to  Spotsylvania.    The  woods  being  on  fire,  and  the 


GRANT  ATTACKS  THE  FRONT    343 

men  unable  to  bivouac,  the  whole  corps  pushed  on 
to  Spotsylvania,  thus  forestalling  Grant,  who  had 
intended  to  get  there  first  himself. 

This  brought  on  another  tremendous  battle  in 
the  bush.  Lee  formed  a  semicircle,  facing  north, 
round  Spotsylvania,  in  a  supreme  effort  to  stem,  if 
not  throw  back,  Grant's  most  determined  advance. 
Grant,  on  the  other  hand,  indomitably  pressed 
home  wave  after  wave  of  attack  till  the  evening  of 
the  twelfth.  The  morning  of  that  desperate  day 
was  foggy;  and  the  attack  was  delayed.  The  Fed- 
eral objective  was  a  commanding  salient,  jutting 
out  from  the  Confederate  center,  and  now  weak- 
ened by  the  removal  of  guns  overnight  to  follow 
the  apparent  Federal  move  toward  the  south. 
The  gray  sentries,  peering  through  the  dripping 
woods,  suddenly  found  them  astir.  Then  wave 
after  wave  of  densely  massed  blue  dashed  to  the 
assault,  swarming  up  and  over  on  both  sides,  re- 
gardless of  losses,  and  fighting  hand  to  hand  with 
a  fury  that  earned  this  famous  salient  the  name  of 
Bloody  Angle.  Back  and  still  back  went  the  out- 
numbered gray,  many  of  v/hom  were  surrounded 
by  the  swirling  currents  of  inpouring  blue.  But 
presently  Lee  himself  came  up,  and  would  have  led 
his  reinforcements  to  the  charge  if  a  pleading  shout 


344        CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

of  "General  Lee  to  the  rear!"  had  not  induced  him 
to  desist.  Every  spare  Confederate  rushed  to  the 
rescue.  From  right  and  left  and  rear  the  gray 
streams  came,  impetuous  and  strong,  united  in  one 
main  current  and  dashed  against  the  blue.  There, 
in  the  Bloody  Angle,  the  battle  raged  with  ever- 
increasing  fury  until  the  rising  tide  of  strife,  burst- 
ing its  narrow  bounds,  carried  the  blue  attackers 
back  to  where  they  came  from.  But  they  were 
hardly  clear  of  that  appalling  slope  before  they  re- 
formed, presented  an  undaunted  front  once  more, 
and  then  drew  off  with  stinging  resistance  to  the 
very  last. 

After  five  days  of  much  rain  and  little  fighting 
Grant  made  his  final  effort  on  the  eighteenth. 
This  was  meant  to  be  a  great  surprise.  Two  corps 
changed  position  under  cover  of  the  night  and 
sprang  their  trap  at  four  in  the  morning.  But  Lee 
was  again  before  them,  ready  and  resolute  as  ever. 
Thirty  guns  converged  their  withering  fire  on  the 
big  blue  masses  and  seemed  to  burn  them  off  the 
field.  These  masses  never  closed,  as  they  had  done 
six  days  before;  and  when  they  fell  back  beaten  the 
fortnight's  battle  in  the  Wilderness  was  done. 

During  it  there  had  been  two  operations  that 
gave  Grant  better  satisfaction :  Sheridan's  raid  and 


GRANT  ATTACKS  THE  FRONT    345 

Sherman's  advance.  As  large  bodies  of  cavalry 
could  not  maneuver  in  the  bush  Grant  had  sent 
Sheridan  off  on  his  Richmond  Raid  ten  days  before. 
Striking  south  near  Spotsylvania,  Sheridan's  ten 
thousand  horsemen  rounded  Lee's  right,  cut  the 
rails  on  either  side  of  Beaver  Dam  Station,  de- 
stroyed this  important  depot  on  the  Virginia  Cen- 
tral Railroad,  and  then  made  straight  for  Rich- 
mond. Stuart  followed  hard,  made  an  exhausting 
sweep  round  Sheridan's  flank,  and  faced  him  on 
the  eleventh  at  Yellow  Tavern,  six  miles  north  of 
Richmond.  Here  the  tired  and  outnumbered  Con- 
federates made  a  desperate  attempt  to  stem  Sheri- 
dan's advance.  But  Stuart,  the  hero  of  his  own 
men,  and  the  admiration  of  his  generous  foes,  was 
mortally  wounded;  and  his  thinner  lines,  over- 
lapped and  outweighed,  gave  ground  and  drew  off. 
Richmond  had  no  garrison  to  resist  a  determined 
attack.  But  Sheridan,  knowing  he  could  not  hold 
it  and  having  better  work  to  do,  pushed  on  south- 
east to  Haxall's  Landing,  where  he  could  draw 
much-needed  supplies  from  Butler,  just  across  the 
James.  With  the  enemy  aggressive  and  alert  all 
round  him,  he  built  a  bridge  under  fire  across 
the  Chickahominy,  struck  north  for  the  Army  of 
the  Potomac,  and  reported  his  return  to  Grant  at 


346        CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

Chesterfield  Station  —  halfway  back  to  Spotsyl- 
vania —  on  his  seventeenth  day  out. 

In  the  course  of  this  great  raid  Sheridan  had 
drawn  off  the  Confederate  cavalry;  fought  four 
successful  actions;  released  hundreds  of  Union 
prisoners  and  taken  as  many  himself;  cut  rails  and 
wires  to  such  an  extent  that  Lee  could  only  com- 
municate with  Richmond  by  messenger ;  destroyed 
enormous  quantities  of  the  most  vitally  needed 
enemy  stores,  especially  food  and  medical  supplies; 
and,  by  penetrating  the  outer  defenses  of  Rich- 
mond, raised  Federal  prestige  to  a  higher  plane 
at  a  most  important  juncture. 

Meanwhile  Sherman,  whose  own  main  body  in- 
cluded a  hundred  thousand  men,  had  started  from 
Chattanooga  at  the  same  time  as  Grant  from  Cul- 
peper  Court  House.  In  Grant's  opinion  "Johnston, 
with  Atlanta,  was  of  less  importance  only  be- 
cause the  capture  of  Johnston  and  his  army  would 
not  produce  so  immediate  and  decisive  a  result 
in  closing  the  rebellion  as  would  the  possession 
of  Richmond,  Lee,  and  his  army."  Sherman's 
organization,  supply  and  transport,  engineers,  staff, 
and  army  generally  were  excellent.  So  skillful, 
indeed,  were  his  railway  engineers  that  a  disgusted 
Confederate   raider   called   out  to   a   demolition 


GRANT  ATTACKS  THE  FRONT    347 

party:  "Better  save  your  powder,  boys.  What's 
the  good  of  blowing  up  this  one  when  Sherman 
brings  duplicate  tunnels  along?  " 

Sherman  had  double  Johnston's  numbers  in  the 
field.  But  Johnston,  as  a  supremely  skillful  Fabian, 
was  a  most  worthy  opponent  for  this  campaign, 
when  the  Confederate  object  was  to  gain  time  and 
sicken  the  North  of  the  war  by  falling  back  from 
one  strongly  prepared  position  to  another,  inflict- 
ing as  much  loss  as  possible  on  the  attackers,  and 
forcing  them  to  stretch  their  line  of  communica- 
tion to  the  breaking  point  among  a  hostile  popula- 
tion. Two  of  Sherman's  best  divisions  were  still 
floundering  about  with  the  rest  of  the  Red  River 
Expedition.  So  he  had  to  modify  his  original  plan, 
which  would  have  taken  him  much  sooner  to  At- 
lanta and  given  him  the  support  of  a  simultaneous 
attack  on  Mobile  by  a  cooperating  joint  expedition. 
But  he  was  ready  to  the  minute,  all  the  same. 

Dalton,  Johnston's  first  stronghold,  was  cleverly 
turned  by  McPherson's  right  flank  march;  where- 
upon Johnston  fell  back  on  Resaca.  Here,  on  the 
fifteenth  of  May,  the  armies  fought  hard  for  some 
hours.  But  Sherman  again  outflanked  the  forti- 
fied enemy,  who  retired  to  Kingston.  Then,  after 
Sherman  had  made  a  four  days'  halt  to  accumulate 


348        CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

supplies,  the  advance  was  resumed,  against  de- 
termined opposition  and  with  a  good  deal  of  hard 
fighting  for  a  week  in  the  neighborhood  of  New 
Hope  Church.  The  result  of  the  usual  outflanking 
movements  was  that  Johnston  had  to  evacuate 
Allatoona  on  the  fourth  of  June.  Sherman  at  once 
turned  it  into  his  advanced  field  base;  while  John- 
ston fell  back  on  another  strong  and  well-prepared 
position  at  Kenesaw  Mountain. 

Grant,  favored  in  a  general  way  by  Sherman  and 
in  a  special  way  by  Sheridan,  had  meanwhile  en- 
joyed a  third  advantage,  this  time  on  his  own  im- 
mediate front,  through  the  sickness  of  Lee,  who 
could  not  take  personal  command  during  the  last  ten 
days  of  May.  On  the  twenty-first  half  of  Grant's 
army  marched  south  while  half  stood  threatening 
Lee,  in  order  to  give  their  friends  a  start  toward 
Richmond.  This  move  was  so  well  staffed  and 
screened  that  perhaps  Lee  could  not  have  seen  his 
chance  quite  soon  enough  in  any  case.  But  when 
he  did  learn  what  had  happened  even  his  calm 
self-control  gave  way  to  the  exceeding  bitter 
cry:  "We  must  strike  them!  We  must  never  let 
them  pass  us  again ! "  On  the  thirtieth  he  was  hor- 
rified at  getting  from  Beauregard  (who  was  then 
between  Richmond  and   Petersburg)  a  telegram 


GRANT  ATTACKS  THE  FRONT    349 

which  showed  that  the  Confederate  Government 
was  busy  with  the  circumlocution  office  in  Rich- 
mond while  the  enemy  was  thundering  at  the  gate. 
"War  Department  must  determine  when  and  what 
troops  to  order  from  here."  Lee  immediately  an- 
swered: "If  you  cannot  determine  what  troops 
you  can  spare,  the  Department  cannot.  The  re- 
sult of  your  delay  will  be  disaster.  Butler's  troops 
will  be  with  Grant  tomorrow."  Lee  also  tele- 
graphed direct  to  Davis  for  immediate  reinforce- 
ments, which  arrived  only  just  in  time  for  the 
terrific  battle  of  Cold  Harbor. 

With  these  three  advantages,  in  addition  to  the 
other  odds  in  his  favor,  Grant  seemed  to  have 
found  the  tide  of  fortune  at  the  flood  in  the  latter 
part  of  May.  But  he  had  many  troubles  of  his  own. 
No  sooner  had  half  his  army  been  badly  defeated 
on  the  eighteenth  than  news  came  that  Sigel  was 
in  full  retreat  instead  of  cutting  off  supphes  from 
Lee.  Then  came  news  of  Butler's  retreat  from 
Drewry 's  Bluff,  close  in  to  Richmond.  Nor  was  this 
all;  for  it  was  only  now  that  definite  news  of  the 
Red  River  Expedition  arrived  to  confirm  Grant's 
worst  suspicions  and  ruin  his  second  plan  of  help- 
ing Farragut  to  take  Mobile.  But,  as  was  his  wont, 
Grant  at  once  took  steps  to  meet  the  crisis.    He 


S50        CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

ordered  Hunter  to  replace  Sigel  and  go  south  — 
straight  into  the  heart  of  the  Valley,  asked  the 
navy  to  move  his  own  base  down  the  Rappahan- 
nock from  Fredericksburg  to  Port  Royal,  and  then 
himself  marched  on  toward  Richmond,  where  Lee 
was  desperately  trying  to  concentrate  for  battle. 

The  two  armies  were  now  drawing  all  available 
force  together  round  the  strategic  center  of  Cold 
Harbor,  only  nine  miles  east  of  Richmond.  On  the 
thirty-first  Sheridan  drove  out  the  enemy  detach- 
ments there,  and  was  himself  about  to  retire  before 
much  superior  reinforcements  when  he  got  Grant's 
order  to  hold  his  ground  at  any  cost.  Nightfall 
prevented  a  general  assault  till  the  next  morning, 
when  Sheridan  managed  to  stand  fast  till  Wright's 
whole  corps  came  up  and  the  enemy  at  once  de- 
sisted. But  elsewhere  the  Confederates  did  what 
they  could  to  stave  the  Federals  off  from  advanta- 
geous ground  on  that  day  and  the  next.  The  day 
after  —  the  fateful  third  of  June  —  the  two  sides 
closed  in  death-grips  at  Cold  Harbor. 

On  this,  the  thirtieth  day  of  Grant's  campaign 
of  stern  attrition  and  would-be-smashing  hammer- 
strokes  at  Lee,  these  were  his  orders  for  attack: 
"The  moment  it  becomes  certain  that  an  assault 
cannot  succeed,  suspend  the  offensive.    But  when 


GRANT  ATTACKS  THE  FRONT    351 

one  does  succeed,  push  it  vigorously,  and,  if  neces- 
sary, pile  in  troops  at  the  successful  point  from 
wherever  they  can  be  taken."  The  trouble  was 
that  Grant  was  two  days  late  in  carrying  on  the 
battle  so  well  begun  by  Sheridan,  that  Warren's 
corps  was  two  miles  off  and  entirely  disconnected, 
and  that  the  three  remaining  corps  formed  three 
parts  and  no  whole  when  the  stress  of  action  came. 
At  dawn  Meade's  Army  of  the  Potomac  (less 
Warren's  corps)  began  to  take  post  for  the  grand 
attack  that  some,  more  sanguine  than  reflecting, 
hoped  would  win  the  war.  When  it  was  light  the 
guns  burst  out  in  furious  defiance,  each  side's  ar- 
tillery trying  to  beat  the  other's  down  before 
the  crisis  of  the  infantry  assault.  There  was  no 
maneuvering.  Each  one  of  Meade's  three  corps  — 
Hancock's,  Wright's,  and  Smith's  (brought  over 
from  Butler's  command)  —  marched  straight  to  its 
front.  This  led  them  apart,  on  diverging  lines,  and 
so  exposed  their  flanks  as  well  as  their  fronts  to 
enemy  fire.  But  though  each  corps  thought  its 
neighbor  wrong  to  uncover  its  flanks,  and  the  true 
cause  was  not  discovered  till  compass  bearings  were 
afterwards  compared,  yet  each  went  on  undaunted, 
gaining  momentum  with  every  step,  and  gather- 
ing itself  together  for  the  final  charge. 


352        CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

Then,  surging  like  great  storm-blown  waves,  the 
blue  lines  broke  against  Lee's  iron  front.  In  every 
gallant  case  there  was  the  same  wild  cresting  of  the 
wave,  the  same  terrific  crash,  the  same  adventur- 
ous tongues  of  blue  that  darted  up  as  far  as  they 
could  go  alive,  the  same  anguishing  recession  from 
the  fatal  mark,  and  the  same  agonizing  wreckage 
left  behind.  In  Hancock's  corps  the  crisis  passed 
in  just  eight  minutes.  But  in  those  eight  dire  min- 
utes eight  colonels  died  while  leading  their  regiments 
on  to  a  foredoomed  defeat.  One  of  these  eight, 
James  P.  McMahon  of  New  York,  alone  among 
his  dauntless  fellows,  actually  reached  the  Confed- 
erate lines,  and,  catching  the  colors  from  their 
stricken  bearer,  waved  them  one  moment  above  the 
parapet  before  he  fell. 

Flesh  and  blood  could  do  no  more.  Under  the 
withering  fire  and  crossfire  of  Lee's  unshaken  front 
the  beaten  corps  went  back,  re-formed,  and  waited. 
They  had  not  long  to  wait;  for  Grant  was  set  on 
swinging  his  three  hammers  for  three  more  blows 
at  least.  So  again  the  three  assaults  were  sepa- 
rately made  on  the  one  impregnable  front;  and 
again  the  waves  receded,  leaving  a  second  mass  of 
agonizing  wreckage  with  the  first.  Yet  even  this 
was  not  enough  for  Grant,  who  once  more  renewed 


GRANT  ATTACKS  THE  FRONT    353 

his  orders.  These  orders  quickly  ran  their  usual 
course,  from  the  army  to  the  different  corps,  from 
each  corps  to  its  own  divisions,  and  from  divisions 
to  brigades.  But  not  a  single  unit  stirred.  From 
the  generals  to  the  "thinking  Jaayonets"  every 
soldier  knew  the  limit  had  been  reached.  OflScially 
the  order  was  obeyed  by  a  front-line  fire  of  luus- 
ketry,  as  well  as  by  the  staunch  artillery,  which 
again  gave  its  infantry  the  comfort  of  the  guns. 
But  that  was  all. 

Thus  ended  the  battle  of  Cold  Harbor,  the  last 
pitched  battle  on  Virginian  soil.  Grant  reported 
it  in  three  short  sentences ;  and  afterwards  referred 
to  it  in  these  other  three.  * '  I  have  always  regretted 
that  the  last  assault  [i.e.,  the  whole  battle  of  the 
third  of  June]  was  ever  made.  No  advantage  what- 
ever was  gained  to  compensate  for  the  heavy 
loss.  Indeed,  the  advantages,  other  than  those 
of  relative  losses,  were  on  the  Confederate  side." 
Even  these,  however,  were  also  on  the  Confederate 
side,  as  Grant  lost  nearly  thirteen  thousand,  while 
Lee  lost  less  than  eighteen  hundred.  Cold  Harbor 
undoubtedly  lowered  Union  morale,  both  at  the 
front  and  all  through  the  loyal  North.  It  en- 
couraged the  Peace  Party,  revived  Confederate 
hopes,   and   shook   the  army's   faith  in    Grant's 


354        CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

commandership.  Martin  McMahon,  a  Union  gen- 
eral, writing  many  years  after  the  event,  of  which 
he  was  a  most  competent  witness,  said:  "It  was 
the  dreary,  dismal,  bloody,  ineffective  close  of  the 
lieutenant-general's  first  campaign  with  the  Army 
of  the  Potomac." 

Cold  Harbor  caused  a  change  of  plan.  Report- 
ing two  days  later  Grant  said:  "I  now  find,  after 
thirty  days  of  trial,  the  enemy  deems  it  of  the  first 
importance  to  run  no  risks  with  the  armies  they 
now  have.  Without  a  greater  sacrifice  of  human 
life  than  I  am  willing  to  make  all  cannot  be  accom- 
plished that  I  had  designed  outside  of  the  city  [of 
Richmond].  I  have  therefore  resolved  upon  the 
following  plan,"  which,  in  one  word,  involved  a 
complete  change  from  a  series  of  pitched  battles  to 
a  long-drawn  open  siege. 

The  battles  lasted  thirty  days,  the  siege  three 
hundred.  Therefore,  from  this  time  on  for  the 
next  ten  months,  Lee  had  to  keep  his  living  shield 
between  Grant's  main  body  and  the  last  great 
stronghold  of  the  fighting  South,  while  the  rising 
tide  of  Northern  force,  commanding  all  the  sea 
and  an  ever-increasing  portion  of  the  land,  beat 
ceaselessly  against  his  front  and  flanks,  threw 


GRANT  ATTACKS  THE  FRONT    355 

out  destroying  arms  against  his  ever-diminishing 
sources  of  supply,  and  wore  the  starving  shield 
itself  down  to  the  very  bone. 

Grant's  losses  —  forty  thousand  killed  and 
wounded  —  were  all  made  good  by  immediate  re- 
inforcement, as  was  his  other  human  wastage  from 
sickness,  straggling,  and  desertion :  made  good,  that 
is,  in  the  quantities  required  to  wear  out  Lee, 
whose  thinning  ranks  could  never  be  renewed;  but 
not  made  good  in  quality ;  for  many  of  the  best  were 
dead.  The  wastage  of  material  is  hardly  worth 
considering  on  the  Northern  side;  for  it  could  al- 
ways be  made  good,  superabundantly  good.  But 
the  corresponding  wastage  on  the  Southern  side 
was  unrenewed  and  unrenewable.  Food,  clothing, 
munitions,  medical  stores  —  it  was  all  the  same  for 
all  the  Southern  armies :  desperate  expedients,  slow 
starvation,  death. 

Consternation  reigned  at  Richmond  on  the 
twelfth  of  June,  the  day  the  fitful  firing  ceased 
around  Cold  Harbor.  There  was  danger  in  the  Val- 
ley, where  Hunter  had  won  success  at  Staunton, 
and  where  Crook's  and  Averell's  Union  troops  were 
expected  to  arrive  from  West  Virginia.  Sheridan, 
too,  was  ofi^  on  a  twenty-day  raid.  He  cut  the  Vir- 
ginia Central  rails  at  Trevilian,  did  much  other 


356        CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

damage  between  Richmond  and  the  Valley,  and, 
toward  the  end  of  June,  rejoined  Grant,  who  had 
reached  the  James  nearly  a  fortnight  before.  Al- 
ways trying  to  overlap  Lee's  extending  right,  Grant 
closed  in  on  Petersburg  with  the  Army  of  the  Poto- 
mac while  the  Army  of  the  James  held  fast  against 
Richmond.  This  part  of  the  front  then  remained 
comparatively  quiet  till  the  end  of  July. 

But  the  beleaguered  Confederates  made  one  last 
sortie  out  of  the  Valley  and  straight  against  Wash- 
ington. At  the  beginning  of  July  the  Valley  was 
uncovered  owing  to  the  roundabout  flank  march 
that  Hunter  was  forced  to  make  back  to  his  base 
for  ammunition.  The  enterprising  Jubal  Early 
took  advantage  of  this  with  some  veteran  troops 
and  made  straight  for  Washington.  On  the  ninth 
Lew  Wallace  succeeded  in  delaying  him  for  one 
day  at  the  Monocacy  by  an  admirably  planned  de- 
fense most  gallantly  carried  out  with  greatly  in- 
ferior numbers  and  far  less  veteran  men.  This  gave 
time  for  reinforcements  to  pour  into  Washington; 
so  that  on  the  twelfth.  Early,  finding  the  works 
alive  with  men,  had  to  retreat  even  faster  than 
he  came. 

In  the  meantime  Grant's  extreme  right  wing  was 
steadily  pressing  the  invasion  of  Georgia,  where  we 


GRANT  ATTACKS  THE  FRONT    357 

left  Sherman  and  Johnston  face  to  face  at  Kene- 
saw  in  June.  Here  again  the  beleaguered  Con- 
federates had  been  making  desperate  raids  or 
sorties,  trying  to  cut  Sherman  off  from  his  base  in 
Tennessee  and  keep  back  the  Federal  forces  in 
other  parts  of  the  river  area.  "  Our  Jack  Morgan," 
whom  we  left  as  a  prisoner  of  war  after  his  Ohio 
raid  of  '63,  had  escaped  in  November,  fought  Crook 
and  Averell  for  Saltville  and  Wytheville  in  May, 
and  then,  leaving  southwest  Virginia,  had  raided 
Kentucky  and  taken  Lexington,  but  been  defeated 
at  Cynthiana  and  driven  back  by  overwhelming 
numbers  till  he  again  entered  southwest  Virginia 
on  the  twentieth  of  June.  Forrest  raided  north- 
eastern Mississippi,  badly  defeated  Sturgis  at 
Brice's  Cross  Roads  in  June,  but  was  himself  de- 
feated by  A.  J.  Smith  at  Tupelo  in  July. 

Meanwhile  Sherman  had  been  tapping  John- 
ston's fifty  miles  of  entrenchments  for  three  weeks 
of  rainy  June  weather,  hoping  to  find  a  suitable 
place  into  which  he  could  drive  a  wedge  of  attack. 
On  the  twenty -seventh  he  tried  to  carry  the  Kene- 
saw  lines  by  assault,  but  failed  at  every  point,  with 
a  loss  of  twenty -five  hundred  —  three  times  what 
Johnston  lost. 

By  a  well-combined  series  of  maneuvers  Sherman 


358        CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

then  forced  Johnston  to  fall  back  or  be  hopelessly 
outflanked.  Johnston,  with  equal  skill,  crossed  the 
Chattahoochee  under  cover  of  the  strongly  forti- 
fied bridgehead  which  he  had  built  unknown  to 
Sherman.  But  Sherman,  with  his  double  numbers, 
could  always  hold  Johnston  with  one-half  in  front 
while  turning  his  flank  with  the  other.  So  even  the 
Chattahoochee  was  safely  crossed  on  the  seven- 
teenth of  July  and  the  final  move  against  Atlanta 
was  begun.  That  same  night  Johnston's  magnifi- 
cent skill  was  thrown  to  the  winds  by  Davis, 
who  had  ordered  the  bold  and  skillful  but  far 
too  headlong  John  B.  Hood  to  take  command 
and  "fight." 

Five  days  later  Hood  fought  the  battle  of  At- 
lanta. Just  as  Sherman  was  closing  in  to  entrench 
for  a  siege  Hood  attacked  his  extreme  left  flank 
with  the  utmost  resolution,  driving  it  in  and  com- 
pletely enveloping  it.  But  Sherman  was  not  to  be 
caught.  Knowing  that  only  a  part  of  Hood's  army 
could  be  sent  to  this  attack  while  the  rest  held  the 
lines  of  Atlanta,  Sherman  left  McPherson's  veteran 
Army  of  the  Tennessee  to  do  the  actual  fighting, 
supported,  of  com-se,  by  the  movement  of  troops 
on  their  engaged  right.  McPherson  was  killed. 
Logan  ably  replaced  him  and  won  a  hard-fought 


GRANT  ATTACKS  THE  FRONT    359 

day.  Hood's  loss  was  well  over  eight  thousand; 
Sherman's  considerably  less  than  half. 

On  the  twenty-eighth  Hood  attacked  the  ex- 
treme right,  now  commanded  by  General  O.  O. 
Howard  in  succession  to  McPherson,  whose  Army 
of  the  Tennessee  again  did  most  distinguished  ser- 
vice, especially  Logan's  Fifteenth  Corps  near  Ezra 
Church.  The  Confederates  were  again  defeated 
with  the  heavier  loss.  After  this  the  siege  continued 
all  through  the  month  of  August. 

While  Hood  was  trying  to  keep  Sherman  off 
Atlanta  Grant  was  trying  to  make  a  breach  at 
Petersburg.  Grant  gave  Meade  "minute  orders  on 
the  24th  [of  July]  how  I  wanted  the  assault  con- 
ducted," and  Meade  elaborated  the  actual  plan 
with  admirable  skill  except  in  one  particular  —  that 
of  the  generals  concerned.  Burnside  was  ordered  to 
use  his  corps  for  the  assault,  and  he  chose  Ledlie's 
division  to  lead.  The  mine  was  on  an  enormous 
scale,  designed  to  hold  eight  tons  of  powder,  though 
it  was  only  charged  with  four,  and  was  approached 
by  a  gallery  five  hundred  feet  long.  On  the  twenty- 
ninth  Grant  brought  every  available  man  into 
proper  support  of  Burnside,  whose  other  three  di- 
visions were  to  form  the  immediate  support  of 
Ledlie's  grand  forlorn  hope. 


360        CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

In  the  early  morning  of  the  thirtieth  the  mine 
blew  up  with  an  earthquaking  shock;  the  enemy 
round  it  ran  helter-skelter  to  the  rear ;  a  crater  like 
that  of  a  volcano  was  formed ;  and  a  hundred  and 
sixty  pieces  of  artillery  opened  a  furious  fire  on 
every  square  inch  near  it.  Ledlie's  division  rushed 
forward  and  occupied  the  crater.  But  there  the 
whole  maneuver  stopped  short;  for  everything 
hinged  on  Ledlie's  movements;  and  Ledlie  was  hid- 
ing, well  out  of  danger,  instead  of  "carrying  on." 
After  a  pause  Confederate  reinforcements  came  up 
and  drove  the  leaderless  division  back.  "The 
effort,"  said  Grant,  "was  a  stupendous  failure"; 
and  it  cost  him  nearly  four  thousand  men,  mostly 
captured. 

August  was  a  sad  month  for  the  loyal  North.  It 
was  then,  as  we  have  seen,  that  Lincoln  had  to 
warn  Grant  about  the  way  in  which  his  orders  were 
being  falsified  in  Washington.  It  was  then  that 
Sherman  asked  for  reinforcements,  so  as  to  be  up 
to  strength  before  and  after  the  taking  of  Atlanta. 
And  it  was  then  that  Halleck  warned  Grant  to  be 
ready  to  send  some  of  his  best  men  north  if  there 
should  be  serious  resistance  to  the  draft.  Nor 
was  this  all.  Thurlow  Weed,  the  great  election 
agent,  told  Lincoln  that  the  Government  would  be 


GRANT  ATTACKS  THE  FRONT    361 

defeated;  which  meant,  of  course,  that  the  compro- 
mised and  compromising  Peace  Party  would  prob- 
ably be  at  the  helm  in  time  to  wreck  the  Union. 
With  so  many  of  the  best  men  dead  or  at  the  front 
the  whole  tone  of  political  society  had  been  con- 
siderably lowered  —  to  the  corresponding  advan- 
tage of  all  those  meaner  elements  that  fish  in 
troubled  waters  when  the  dregs  are  well  stirred  up. 
There  were  sinister  signs  in  the  big  cities,  in  the 
press,  and  in  financial  circles.  The  Union  dollar 
once  sank  to  thirty-nine  cents.  To  make  matters 
worse,  there  was  a  good  deal  of  well-founded  dis- 
content among  the  self-sacrificing  loyalists,  both  at 
the  home  and  fighting  fronts,  because  the  Govern- 
ment apparently  allowed  disloyal  and  evasive  citi- 
zens to  live  as  parasites  on  the  Union's  body  politic. 
The  blood  tax  and  money  tax  alike  fell  far  too 
heavily  on  the  patriots ;  while  many  a  parasite  grew 
rich  in  unshamed  safety. 

Mobile  was  won  in  August.  But  the  people's 
eyes  were  mostly  fixed  upon  the  land.  So  a  much 
greater  effect  was  produced  by  Sherman's  laconic 
dispatch  of  the  second  of  September  announcing 
the  fall  of  Atlanta.  The  Confederates,  despairing 
of  holding  it  to  any  good  purpose,  had  blown  up 
everything  they  could  not  move  and  then  retreated. 


362        CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

This  thrilling  news  heartened  the  whole  loyal 
North,  and,  as  Lincoln  at  once  sent  word  to  Sher- 
man, "entitled  those  who  had  participated  to  the 
applause  and  thanks  of  the  nation."  Grant  fired 
a  salute  of  shotted  guns  from  every  battery  bear- 
ing on  the  enemy,  who  were  correspondingly  de- 
pressed. For  every  one  could  now  see  that  if  the 
Union  put  forth  its  full  strength  the  shrunken 
forces  of  the  South  could  not  prevent  the  Northern 
vice  from  crushing  them  to  death. 

September  also  saw  the  turning  of  the  tide  on  the 
still  more  conspicuous  scene  of  action  in  Virginia. 
Grant  had  sent  Sheridan  to  the  Valley,  and  had  just 
completed  a  tour  of  personal  inspection  there,  when 
Sheridan,  finding  Early's  Confederates  divided, 
swooped  down  on  the  exposed  main  body  at  Ope- 
quan  Creek  and  won  a  brilUant  victory  which  raised 
the  hopes  of  the  loyal  North  a  good  deal  liigher  still. 
Exactly  a  month  later,  on  the  nineteenth  of 
October,  Early  made  a  desperate  attempt  to  turn 
the  tables  on  the  Federals  in  the  Valley  by  attack- 
ing them  suddenly,  on  their  exposed  left  flank, 
while  Sheridan  was  absent  at  Washington.  (We 
must  remember  that  Grant  had  to  concert  action 
personally  with  his  sub-commanders,  as  his  orders 
were  so  often  "queered"  when  seen  at  Washington 


GRANT  ATTACKS  THE  FRONT    363 

by  autocratic  Stanton  and  bureaucratic  Halleck.) 
The  troops  attacked  broke  up  and  were  driven  in 
on  their  supports  in  wild  confusion.  Then  the  sup- 
ports gave  way;  and  a  Confederate  victory  seemed 
to  be  assured. 

But  Sheridan  was  on  his  way.  He  had  left  the 
scene  of  his  previous  \'ictory  at  Opequan  Creek, 
near  Winchester,  and  was  now  riding  to  the  rescue 
of  his  army  at  Cedar  Creek,  twenty  miles  south. 
"Sheridan's  Ride,"  so  widely  known  in  song  and 
story,  was  enough  to  shake  the  nerves  of  any  but  a 
very  fit  commander.  The  flotsam  and  jetsam  of 
defeat  swirled  round  him  as  he  rode.  Yet,  with 
unerring  eye,  he  picked  out  the  few  that  could  in- 
fluence the  rest  and  set  them  at  work  to  rally,  re- 
form, and  return.  Inspired  by  his  example  many  a 
straggler  who  had  run  for  miles  presently  "found 
himself"  again  and  got  back  in  time  to  redeem  his 
reputation. 

Arriving  on  the  field  Sheridan  discovered  those 
two  splendid  leaders,  Custer  and  Getty,  holding 
off  the  victorious  Confederates  from  what  other- 
wise seemed  an  easy  prey.  His  presence  encour- 
aged the  formed  defense,  restored  confidence 
among  the  rest  near  by,  and  stiffened  resistance  so 
much  that  hasty  entrenchments  were  successfully 


364        CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

made  and  still  more  successfully  held.  The  first 
rush  having  been  stopped,  Sheridan  turned  the  lull 
that  ensued  into  a  triumphal  progress  by  riding 
bareheaded  along  his  whole  line,  so  that  all  his  men 
might  feel  themselves  once  more  under  his  personal 
command.  Cheer  upon  cheer  greeted  him  as  his 
gallant  charger  carried  him  past;  and  when  the 
astonished  enemy  were  themselves  attacked  they 
broke  in  irretrievable  defeat. 

This  crowning  victory  of  the  long-drawn  Valley 
campaigns,  coming  with  cumulative  force  after 
those  of  Mobile,  Atlanta,  and  Opequan  Creek,  did 
more  to  turn  the  critical  election  than  all  the 
speeches  in  the  North.  The  fittest  at  the  home 
front  judged  by  deeds,  not  words,  agreeing  therein 
with  Rutherford  B.  Hayes  (a  future  President,  now 
one  of  Sheridan's  generals)  who  said:  *'Any  officer 
fit  for  duty  who  at  this  crisis  would  abandon  his 
post  to  electioneer  for  a  seat  in  Congress,  ought  to 
be  scalped." 

The  devastation  of  everything  in  the  Valley 
that  might  be  useful  to  Lee's  army  completed  the 
Union  victory  in  arms;  while  Lincoln's  own  tri- 
umph in  November  completed  it  in  poHtics  and 
raised  his  party  to  the  highest  plane  of  states- 
manship in  war. 


GRANT  ATTACKS  THE  FRONT    365 

From  this  time  till  the  early  spring  the  battle  of 
the  giants  in  Virginia  calmed  down  to  the  minor 
moves  and  clashes  that  mark  a  period  of  winter 
quarters;  while  the  scene  of  more  stirring  action 
shifts  once  more  to  Georgia  and  Tennessee. 


CHAPTER  XI 

SHERMAN   DESTROYS  THE   BASE:  1864 

Sherman  made  Atlanta  his  field  headquarters  for 
September  and  October,  changing  it  entirely  from 
a  Southern  city  to  a  Northern  camp.  The  whole 
population  was  removed,  every  one  being  given  the 
choice  of  going  north  or  south.  In  his  own  words, 
Sherman  "had  seen  Memphis,  Vicksburg,  Natchez, 
and  New  Orleans,  all  captured  from  the  enemy, 
and  each  at  once  garrisoned  by  a  full  division,  if 
not  more;  so  that  success  was  actually  crippling 
our  armies  in  the  field  by  detachments  to  guard  and 
protect  the  interests  of  a  hostile  population."  In 
reporting  to  Washington  he  said:  "If  the  people 
raise  a  howl  against  my  barbarity  and  cruelty,  I 
will  answer  that  war  is  war,  and  not  popularity- 
seeking.  If  they  want  peace,  they  and  their  rela- 
tives must  stop  the  war."  He  also  excluded  the 
swarms  of  demoralizing  camp-followers  that  had 
clogged  him  elsewhere.     One  licensed  sutler  was 

366 


SHERMAN  DESTROYS  THE  BASE        367 

allowed  for  each  of  his  three  armies,  and  no  more. 
Atlanta  thus  became  a  perfect  Union  stronghold 
fixed  in  the  flank  of  the  South. 

The  balance  of  losses  in  action,  from  May  to 
September,  was  heavily  against  the  South :  nearly 
nine  to  four.  The  actual  numbers  did  not  greatly 
differ:  thirty-two  thousand  Federals  to  thirty-five 
thousand  Confederates.  (And  in  killed  and  wound- 
ed the  Federals  lost  many  more  than  the  Confed- 
erates. It  was  the  thirteen  thousand  captured  Con- 
federates that  redressed  the  balance.)  But,  since 
Sherman  had  twice  as  many  in  his  total  as  the 
Confederates  had  in  theirs,  the  odds  in  relative  loss 
were  nine  to  four  in  his  favor.  The  balance  of  loss 
from  disease  was  also  heavily  against  the  Confed- 
erates, who  as  usual  suffered  from  dearth  of  medi- 
cal stores.  The  losses  in  present  and  prospective 
food  suppHes  were  even  more  in  Sherman's  favor ; 
for  his  devastations  had  begun.  Yet  Jefferson 
Davis  was  bound  that  Hood  should  "fight";  and 
Hood  was  nothing  loth. 

Davis  went  about  denouncing  Johnston  for  his 
magnificent  Fabian  defense;  and  added  insult  to  in- 
jury by  coupling  the  name  of  this  very  able  soldier 
and  quite  incorruptible  man  with  that  of  Joseph 
E.  Brown,  Governor  of  Georgia,  who,  though  a 


S68        CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

violent  Secessionist,  opposed  all  proper  unification 
of  effort,  and  exempted  eight  thousand  State  em- 
ployees from  conscription  as  civilian  "indispensa- 
bles."  Then,  when  Sherman  approached,  Brown 
ran  away  with  all  the  food  and  furniture  he  could 
stuff  into  his  own  special  train;  though  he  left 
behind  him  all  arms,  ammunition,  and  other  war- 
like stores,  besides  the  confidential  documents 
belonging  to  the  State. 

Brown  had  also  weakened  Hood's  army  by  with- 
drawing the  State  troops  to  gather  in  the  harvest 
and  store  it  where  Sherman  afterwards  used  what 
he  wanted  and  destroyed  the  rest.  Yet  Hood  kept 
operating  in  Sherman's  rear,  admirably  seconded 
by  Forrest's  and  Wheeler's  raiding  cavalry.  Late 
in  October  Forrest  performed  the  remarkable  feat 
of  taking  a  flotilla  with  cavalry.  He  suddenly 
swooped  down  on  the  Tennessee  near  Johnsonville 
and  took  the  gunboat  Undine  with  a  couple  of 
transports.  Hood  had  meanwhile  been  busy  on 
Sherman's  line  of  communications,  hoping  at  least 
to  immobihze  him  round  Atlanta,  and  at  best  to 
bring  him  back  from  Georgia  for  a  Federal  defeat 
in  Tennessee. 

On  the  fifth  of  October  the  last  action  near  At- 
lanta was  fought  thirty  miles  northwest,   when 


GENERAL    W.    T.    SHERMAN 

Photograph    by    Brady.     In    the    collection    of    L.    C.    Handy, 
Washington 


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SHERMAN  DESTROYS  THE  BASE       369 

Hood  made  a  desperate  attempt  on  Allatoona  with 
a  greatly  superior  force.  Twelve  miles  off,  on 
Kenesaw  Mountain,  Sherman  could  see  the  smoke 
and  hear  the  sounds  of  battle  through  the  clear, 
still,  autumn  air.  But  as  his  signalers  could  get  no 
answer  from  the  fort  he  began  to  fear  that  Alla- 
toona was  already  lost,  when  the  signal  officer's 
quick  eye  caught  the  faintest  flutter  at  one  of  the 
fort  windows.  Presently  the  letters,  C  —  R  —  S 
—  E  —  H  —  E  —  R,  were  made  out;  which  meant 
that  General  John  M.  Corse,  one  of  the  best  volun- 
teers produced  by  the  war,  was  holding  out.  He 
had  hurried  over  from  Rome,  on  a  call  from  Alla- 
toona, and  was  withstanding  more  than  four  thou- 
sand men  with  less  than  two  thousand.  All  morn- 
ing long  the  Confederates  persisted  in  their  at- 
tacks, while  Sherman's  rehef  column  was  hurrying 
over  from  Kenesaw.  Early  in  the  afternoon  the 
fire  slackened  and  ceased  before  this  column  ar- 
rived. But  Sherman's  renewed  fears  were  soon 
allayed.  For  Corse,  after  losing  more  than  a  third 
of  his  men,  had  repulsed  the  enemy  alone,  inflicting 
on  them  an  even  greater  loss  in  proportion  to  their 
double  strength. 

Corse  was  still  full  of  fight,  reporting  back  to 
Kenesaw  that  though  "short  a  cheek  bone  and  an 

24 


370        CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

ear"  he  was  "able  to  whip  all  hell  yet."  Sherman 
thanked  the  brave  defenders  in  his  general  orders 
of  the  seventh  for  "the  handsome  defense  made  at 
Allatoona"  and  pointed  the  moral  that  "garrisons 
must  hold  their  posts  to  the  last  minute,  sure  that 
the  time  gained  is  valuable  and  necessary  to  their 
comrades  at  the  front." 

The  situation  at  the  beginning  of  November  was 
most  peculiar.  With  the  whole  Gulf  coast  block- 
aded and  the  three  great  ports  in  Union  hands, 
with  the  Mississippi  a  Union  stream  from  source  to 
sea,  and  with  Sherman  firmly  set  in  the  northwest 
flank  of  Georgia,  Hood  made  the  last  grand  sortie 
from  the  beleaguered  South.  It  was  a  desperate 
adventure  to  go  north  against  the  Federal  troops 
in  Tennessee,  with  Kentucky  and  the  line  of  the 
Ohio  as  his  ultimate  objective,  when  Lincoln  had 
been  returned  to  power,  when  Grant  was  surely 
wearing  down  Lee  in  Virginia,  and  when  Sherman's 
preponderance  of  force  was  not  only  assured  in 
Georgia  but  in  Tennessee  as  well.  Moreover, 
Thomas,  the  "Rock  of  Chickamauga, "  had  been 
sent  back  to  counter  Hood  from  Grant's  and  Sher- 
man's old  headquarters  at  Nashville  on  the  Cum- 
berland. And  Thomas  was  soon  to  have  the  usual 
double  numbers;  for  all  the  Western  depots  sent 


SHERMAN  DESTROYS  THE  BASE        371 

him  their  trained  recruits,  till,  by  the  end  of  Novem- 
ber, his  total  was  over  seventy  thousand.  Hood's 
forty  thousand  could  not  be  increased  or  even 
stopped  from  dwindling.  Yet  he  pushed  on,  with 
the  consent  of  Beauregard,  who  now  held  thegeneral 
command  of  all  the  troops  opposed  to  Sherman. 

The  next  moves  were  even  more  peculiar  than  the 
first.  For  while  Hood  hoped  to  close  the  breach 
in  Georgia  by  drawing  Sherman  back,  and  Sherman 
expected  that  when  he  went  on  to  widen  the  breach 
he  would  draw  Hood  back,  what  really  happened 
was  that  each  advanced  on  his  own  new  line  in  op- 
posite directions.  Hood  north  through  Tennes- 
see, Sherman  southeast  through  Georgia.  So  firm 
was  the  grip  of  the  Union  on  all  the  navigable 
waters  that  Hood  could  only  cross  the  Tennes- 
see somewhere  along  the  shoals.  He  chose  a  place 
near  Florence,  Alabama,  got  safely  over  and  en- 
camped. There,  for  the  moment,  we  shall  leave 
him  and  follow  Sherman  to  the  sea. 

The  region  of  the  Gulf  and  lower  Mississippi 
being  now  under  the  assured  predominance  of 
Union  forces.  Grant,  with  equal  v/isdom  and  de- 
cision, entirely  approved  of  Sherman's  plan  to  cut 
loose  from  his  western  base,  make  a  devastating 


372        CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

march  through  the  heart  of  fertile  Georgia,  and 
join  the  eastern  forces  of  the  North  at  Savannah, 
where  Fort  Pulaski  was  in  Union  hands  and  the 
Union  navy  was,  as  usual,  overwhelmingly  strong. 
Sherman's  March  to  the  Sea  at  once  acquired 
a  popular  renown  which  it  has  never  lost.  This, 
however,  was  chiefly  because  it  happened  to  catch 
the  public  eye  while  nothing  else  was  on  the  stage. 
For  its  many  admirable  features  were  those  about 
■which  most  people  know  little  and  care  less :  well- 
combined  grand  strategy,  perfection  in  headquar- 
ter orders  and  the  incidental  staff  work,  excellent 
march  discipline,  wonderful  coordination  between 
the  different  arms  of  the  Service  and  with  all  auxil- 
iary branches  —  especially  the  commissariat  and 
transport,  and,  to  clinch  everything,  a  thorough- 
ness of  execution  which  distinguished  each  unit 
concerned.  As  a  feat  of  arms  this  famous  march  is 
hardly  worth  mentioning.  There  were  no  battles 
and  no  such  masterly  maneuvers  as  those  of  the 
much  harder  march  to  Atlanta.  Nor  was  the  oper- 
ational problem  to  be  mentioned  in  the  same 
breath  with  that  of  the  subsequent  march  through 
the  Carolinas.  Sherman  himself  says:  "Were  I  to 
express  my  measure  of  the  relative  importance  of 
the  march  to  the  sea,  and  of  that  from  Savannah 


SHERMAN  DESTROYS  THE  BASE        373 

northward,  I  would  place  the  former  at  one,  and  the 
latter  at  ten  —  or  the  maximum." 

The  Government  was  very  doubtful  and  coun- 
seled reconsideration.  But  Grant  and  Sherman, 
knowing  the  factors  so  very  much  better,  were  sure 
the  problem  could  easily  be  solved.  Sherman  left 
Atlanta  on  the  fifteenth  of  November  and  laid 
siege  to  Savannah  on  the  tenth  of  December.  He 
utterly  destroyed  the  military  value  of  Atlanta  and 
everything  else  on  the  way  that  could  be  used  by 
the  armies  in  the  field.  Of  course,  to  do  this  he 
had  to  reduce  civilian  supplies  to  the  point  at  which 
no  surplus  remained  for  transport  to  the  front;  and 
civilians  naturally  suffered.  But  his  object  was  to 
destroy  the  Georgian  base  of  supplies  without  in- 
flicting more  than  incidental  hardship  on  civilians. 
And  this  object  he  attained.  He  cut  a  swath  of 
devastation  sixty  miles  wide  all  the  way  to  Savan- 
nah. Every  rail  was  rooted  up,  made  red-hot,  and 
twisted  into  scrap.  Every  road  and  bridge  was 
destroyed.  Every  kind  of  surplus  supplies  an  army 
could  possibly  need  was  burnt  or  consumed.  Civil- 
ians were  left  with  enough  to  keep  body  and  soul 
together,  but  nothing  to  send  away,  even  if  the 
means  of  transportation  had  been  left. 

Sherman's  sixty  thousand  men  were  all  as  fit  as 


374        CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

his  own  tall  sinewy  form,  which  was  the  very  em- 
bodiment of  expert  energy.  Every  weakling  had 
been  left  behind.  Consequently  the  whole  veteran 
force  simply  romped  through  this  Georgian  raid. 
The  main  body  mostly  followed  the  rails,  which  gangs 
of  soldiers  would  pile  on  bonfires  of  sleepers.  The 
mounted  men  swept  up  everything  about  the  flanks. 
But  nothing  escaped  the  "bummers, "  who  foraged 
for  their  units  every  day,  starting  out  empty-handed 
on  foot  and  returning  heavily  laden  on  horses  or 
mules  or  in  some  kind  of  vehicle.  If  Atlanta  had 
been  a  volcano  in  eruption,  and  the  molten  lava  had 
flowed  to  Savannah  in  a  stream  sixty  miles  wide  and 
five  times  as  long,  the  destruction  could  hardly  have 
been  worse,  except,  of  course,  that  civilians  were 
left  enough  to  keep  them  alive,  and  that,  with  a  few 
inevitable  exceptions,  they  were  not  ill  treated. 

The  fighting  hardly  distm-bed  the  daily  routine. 
Sherman  was  never  in  danger;  though  wiseacre 
Washington,  supposing  that  he  ought  to  be,  used 
to  pester  Lincoln,  who  always  replied:  "Grant 
says  the  men  are  safe  with  Sherman,  and  that  if 
they  can't  get  out  where  they  want  to,  they  can 
crawl  back  by  the  hole  they  went  in  at."  This 
seemed  to  allay  anxiety;  though  the  truth  was 
that  Sherman's  real  safety  lay  in  going  ahead  to 


SHERMAN  DESTROYS  THE  BASE       375 

the  Union  sea,  not  in  retracing  his  steps  over  the 
devastated  line  of  his  advance. 

On  approaching  Savannah  a  mounted  officer 
was  blown  up  by  a  land  torpedo,  his  horse  killed, 
and  himself  badly  lacerated.  Sherman  at  once 
sent  his  prisoners  ahead  to  dig  up  the  other  tor- 
pedoes or  get  blown  up  by  those  they  failed  to  find. 
No  more  explosions  took  place.  Savannah  itseK 
was  strongly  entrenched  and  further  defended  by 
Fort  McAllister.  Against  this  fort  Sherman  de- 
tached his  own  old  Shiloh  division  of  the  Fifteenth 
Corps,  now  under  the  very  capable  command  of 
General  William  B.  Hazen.  As  the  day  wore  on 
Sherman  became  very  impatient,  watching  for 
Hazen's  attack,  when  a  black  object  went  gliding 
up  the  Ogeechee  River  toward  the  fort.  Presently 
a  man-of-war  appeared  flying  the  Stars  and  Stripes 
and  signaling,  Who  are  you?  On  getting  the  an- 
swer, General  Sherman,  she  asked.  Is  Fort  McAllis- 
ter taken?  and  immediately  received  the  cheering  as- 
surance. No;  but  it  will  be  in  a  minule.  Then,  just 
as  the  signal  flags  ceased  waving,  Hazen's  straight 
blue  lines  broke  cover,  advanced,  charged  through 
the  hail  of  shot,  shell,  and  rifle  bullets,  rushed 
the  defenses,  and  stood  triumphant  on  the  top. 

Before    midnight    Sherman    was    writing    his 


376        CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

dispatches  on  board  the  U.  S.  S.  Dandelion  and  ex- 
amining those  received  from  Grant.  He  learned 
now,  from  Grant's  of  the  third  (ten  days  before), 
that  Thomas  was  facing  Hood  round  Nashville 
and  that  the  Government,  and  even  Grant,  were 
getting  very  impatient  with  Thomas  for  not  strik- 
ing hard  and  at  once.  A  week  later  the  Confeder- 
ate general,  Hardee,  managed  to  evacuate  Savan- 
nah before  his  one  remaining  line  of  retreat  had 
been  cut  off.  He  was  a  thorough  soldier.  But  men 
and  means  and  time  were  lacking;  and  the  civil 
population  hoped  to  save  all  that  was  not  con- 
sidered warlike  stores.  Thus  immense  supplies  fell 
into  Sherman's  hands.  Savannah  was  of  course 
placed  under  martial  law.  But  as  the  war  was  now 
nearing  its  inevitable  end,  and  the  citizens  were 
thoroughly  "subjugated,"  those  who  wished  tore- 
main  were  allowed  to  do  so.  Only  two  hundred  left, 
going  to  Charleston  under  a  flag  of  truce. 

The  following   official   announcement  reached 
Lincoln  on  Christmas  Eve. 

Savannah,  Georgia,  December  22,  1864. 

To  His  Excellency  President  Lincoln, 
Washington,  D.  C. 
I  beg  to  present  you  as  a  Christmas  gift  the  city  of 
Savannah,  with  one  hundred  and  fifty  heavy  guns  and 


SHERMAN  DESTROYS  THE  BASE        377 

plenty  of  ammunition,  also  about  twenty-five  thou- 
sand bales  of  cotton. 

W.  T.  Sherman,  Major-General. 

In  the  meantime  Hood's  desperate  sortie  had 
struck  north  as  far  as  Franklin,  Tennessee.  Here, 
on  the  last  of  November,  General  John  Schofield, 
commanding  the  advanced  part  of  Thomas's  army, 
gallantly  withstood  a  furious  attack.  On  this  the 
closing  day  of  a  lingering  Indian  summer  the 
massed  Confederates  charged  with  the  piercing 
rebel  yell,  and  charged  again ;  re-formed  under  cover 
of  the  dense  pall  of  stationary  smoke;  and  returned 
to  the  charge  again  and  again.  Many  a  leader 
met  his  death  right  against  the  very  breastworks. 
Another  would  instantly  spring  forward,  only  to 
fall  in  his  turn.  Thirteen  times  the  gaunt  gray  lines 
rushed  madly  through  the  battle  smoke  and  lost 
their  front  ranks  against  the  withering  fire  before 
the  autumn  night  closed  in.  Schofield  then  fell  back 
on  Brentwood,  halfway  on  the  twenty  miles  to  Nash- 
ville. He  had  lost  over  two  thousand  men.  But 
Hood  had  lost  three  times  as  many ;  and  Hood's  were 
irreplaceable  except  by  a  very  few  local  recruits. 

Hood  now  concentrated  every  available  man  for 
his  final  attack  on  Thomas,  who  had  odds  of  twenty 
thousand  in  his  favor.  Hood  marched  his  thirty-five 


378        CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

thousand  up  to  Nashville,  where  he  actually  in- 
vested the  fifty-five  thousand  Federals.  By  this 
time  even  Grant  was  so  annoyed  at  what  seemed 
to  him  unreasoning  delay  that  he  sent  Logan  to 
take  command  at  once  and  "fight."  But  on  the  fif- 
teenth of  December  Thomas  came  out  of  his  works 
and  fought  Hood  with  determined  skill  all  day. 
Having  gained  a  decisive  advantage  already  he 
pressed  it  home  to  the  very  utmost  on  the  morrow, 
breaking  through  Hood's  shaken  lines,  enveloping 
whole  units  with  converging  fire,  and  taking  prison- 
ers in  mass.  After  a  last  wild  effort  Hood's  beaten 
army  fled,  having  lost  fifteen  thousand  men,  five 
times  as  much  as  Thomas. 

The  battle  of  Nashville  came  nearer  than  any 
other  to  being  a  really  annihilating  victory.  Out 
of  the  forty  thousand  men  Hood  had  at  first  in 
Tennessee  not  half  escaped;  and  of  the  remainder 
not  nearly  half  were  ever  seen  in  arms  again.  As 
an  organized  force  his  army  simply  disappeared. 
The  few  thousands  saved  from  the  wreckage  of  the 
storm  found  their  painful  way  east  to  join  all  that 
was  left  for  the  last  stand  against  the  overwhelm- 
ing forces  of  the  North. 


CHAPTER  XII 

THE  end:  1865 

By  '65  the  Southern  cause  was  lost.  There  was 
nothing  to  hope  for  from  abroad.  Neither  was 
there  anything  to  hope  for  at  home,  now  that 
Lincoln  and  the  Union  Government  had  been  re- 
turned to  power.  From  the  very  first  the  disparity 
of  resources  was  so  great  that  the  South  had  never 
had  a  chance  alone  except  against  a  disunited 
North.  Now  that  the  North  could  bring  its  full 
strength  to  bear  against  the  worn-out  South  the 
only  question  remaining  to  be  settled  in  the  field 
was  simply  one  of  time.  Yet  Davis,  with  his  in- 
domitable will,  would  never  yield  so  long  as  any 
Confederates  would  remain  in  arms.  And  men  like 
Lee  would  never  willingly  give  up  the  fight  so  long 
as  those  they  served  required  them.  Therefore  the 
war  went  on  until  the  Southern  armies  failed  through 
sheer  exliaustion. 

The  North  had  nearly  a  million  men  by  land  and 

379 


380        CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

sea.  The  South  had  perhaps  two  hundred  thou- 
sand. The  North  could  count  on  a  milUon  recruits 
out  of  the  whole  reserve  of  twice  as  many.  The 
South  had  no  reserves  at  all.  The  total  odds  were 
therefore  five  to  one  without  reserves  and  ten  to 
one  if  these  came  in. 

The  scene  of  action,  for  all  decisive  purposes, 
had  shrunk  again,  and  now  included  nothing 
beyond  Virginia  and  the  Carolina s;  and  even  there 
the  Union  forces  had  impregnable  bases  of  attack. 
When  Wilmington  fell  in  January  the  only  port  still 
left  in  Southern  hands  was  Charleston;  and  that  was 
close-blockaded.  Fighting  Confederates  still  re- 
mained in  the  lower  South.  But  victories  like 
Olustee,  Florida,  barren  in  '64,  could  not  avail 
them  now,  even  if  they  had  the  troops  to  win  them. 
The  lower  South  was  now  as  much  isolated  as  the 
trans-Mississippi.  Between  its  blockaded  and  gar- 
risoned coast  on  one  side  and  its  sixty-mile  swath 
of  devastation  through  the  heart  of  Georgia  on  the 
other  it  might  as  well  have  been  a  shipless  island. 
The  same  was  true  of  all  Confederate  places 
beyond  Virginia  and  the  Carolinas.  The  last  shots 
were  fired  in  Texas  near  the  middle  of  May.  But 
they  were  as  futile  against  the  course  of  events 
as  was  the  final  act  of  war  committed  by  the 


THE  END:  1865  381 

Confederate  raider  Shenandoah  at  the  end  of  June, 
when  she  sank  the  whaling  fleet,  far  off  in  the 
lone  Pacific. 

For  the  last  two  months  of  the  four -years*  war 
Davis  made  Lee  Commander-in-Chief.  Lee  at  once 
restored  Johnston  to  his  rightful  place.  These 
two  great  soldiers  then  did  what  could  be  done  to 
stave  off  Grant  and  Sherman.  Lee's  and  John- 
ston's problem  was  of  course  insoluble.  For  each 
was  facing  an  army  which  was  alone  a  match  for 
both.  The  only  chance  of  prolonging  anything 
more  than  a  mere  guerilla  war  was  to  join  forces 
in  southwest  Virginia,  where  the  only  line  of  rails 
was  safe  from  capture  for  the  moment.  But  this 
meant  eluding  Grant  and  Sherman;  and  these  two 
leaders  would  never  let  a  plain  chance  slip.  They 
took  good  care  that  all  Confederate  forces  outside 
the  central  scene  of  action  were  kept  busy  with 
their  own  defense.  They  also  closed  in  enough 
men  from  the  west  to  prevent  Lee  and  Johnston 
escaping  by  the  mountains.  Then,  with  the  help 
of  the  navy,  having  cut  off  every  means  of  escape 
—  north,  south,  east,  and  west  —  they  themselves 
closed  in  for  the  death-grip. 

By  the  first  of  February  Sherman  was  on  his  way 
north  through  the  Carolinas  with  sixty  thousand 


382        CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

picked  men,  drawing  in  reinforcements  as  he  ad- 
vanced against  Johnston's  dwindhng  forty  thou- 
sand, until  the  thousands  that  faced  each  other  at 
the  end  in  April  were  ninety  and  thirty  respec- 
tively. On  the  ninth  of  February  (the  day  Lee 
became  Commander-in-Chief)  Sherman  was  cross- 
ing the  rails  between  Charleston  and  Augusta,  of 
course  destroying  them.  A  week  later  he  was  doing 
the  same  at  Columbia  in  the  middle  of  South  Caro- 
lina. By  this  time  his  old  antagonist,  Johnston, 
had  assumed  command;  so  that  he  had  to  reckon 
with  the  chances  of  a  battle,  as  on  his  way  against 
Atlanta,  and  not  only  with  the  troubles  of  devas- 
tating an  undefended  base,  as  on  his  march  to  the 
sea.  The  difficulties  of  hard  marching  through  an 
enemy  country  full  of  natural  and  artificial  ob- 
stacles were  also  much  greater  here  than  in  Georgia. 
How  well  these  difficulties  could  be  surmounted  by 
a  veteran  army  may  be  realized  from  a  recorded 
instance  which,  though  it  occurred  elsewhere,  was 
yet  entirely  typical.  In  forty  days  an  infantry 
division  of  eight  thousand  men  repaired  a  hundred 
miles  of  rail  and  built  a  hundred  and  eighty-two 
bridges. 

Sherman  took  a  month  to  advance  from  Colum- 
bia in  the  middle  of  South  Carolina  to  Bentonville 


THE  END:  1865  383 

in  the  middle  of  North  CaroHna.  Here  Johnston 
stood  his  ground;  and  a  battle  was  fought  from  the 
nineteenth  to  the  twenty-first  of  March.  Had 
Sherman  known  at  the  time  that  his  own  numbers 
were,  as  he  afterwards  reported,  "vastly  superior," 
he  might  have  crushed  Johnston  then  and  there. 
But,  as  it  was,  he  ably  supported  the  exposed  flank 
that  Johnston  so  skillfully  attacked,  won  the  battle, 
inflicted  losses  a  good  deal  larger  than  his  own,  and 
gained  his  ulterior  objective  as  well  as  if  there  had 
not  been  a  fight  at  all.  This  objective  was  the  con- 
centration of  his  whole  army  round  Goldsboro  by 
the  twenty-fifth.  At  Goldsboro  he  held  the  strate- 
gic center  of  North  Carolina,  being  at  the  junction 
whence  the  rails  ran  east  to  Newbern  (which  had 
long  been  in  Union  hands),  west  to  meet  the  only 
rails  by  which  Lee's  army  might  for  a  time  escape, 
and  north  (a  hundred  and  fifty  miles)  to  Grant's 
besieging  host  at  Petersburg.  Sherman's  record  is 
one  of  which  his  men  might  well  be  proud.  In  fifty 
days  from  Savannah  he  had  made  a  winter  march 
through  four  hundred  and  twenty-five  miles  of  mud, 
had  captured  three  cities,  destroyed  fom-  railways, 
drained  the  Confederate  resources,  increased  his 
own,  and  half  closed  on  Lee  and  Johnston  the  vice 
which  he  and  Grant  could  soon  close  altogether. 


384        CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

Nevertheless  Grant  records  that  "one  of  the 
most  anxious  periods  was  the  last  few  weeks  before 
Petersburg";  for  he  was  haunted  by  the  fear  that 
Lee's  army,  now  nearing  the  last  extremity  of 
famine,  might  risk  all  on  railing  off  southwest  to 
Danville,  the  one  line  left.  Lee,  consummate  now 
as  when  victorious  before,  masked  his  movements 
wonderfully  well  till  the  early  morning  of  the 
twenty-fifth  of  March,  when  he  suddenly  made  a 
furious  attack  where  the  lines  were  very  near  to- 
gether. For  some  hours  he  held  a  salient  in  the 
Federal  position.  But  he  was  presently  driven 
back  with  loss;  and  his  intention  to  escape  stood 
plainly  revealed. 

The  same  day  Sherman  railed  down  to  New- 
bern  over  the  line  repaired  by  that  indefatigable 
and  most  accomplished  engineer,  Colonel  W.  W. 
Wright,  took  ship  for  City  Point,  Virginia,  and  met 
Lincoln,  Grant,  and  Admiral  Porter  there  on  the 
twenty -seventh  and  twenty-eighth.  Grant  ex- 
plained to  Lincoln  that  Sheridan  was  crossing  the 
James  just  below  them,  to  cut  the  rails  running 
south  from  Petersburg  and  then,  by  forced  marches, 
to  cut  those  running  southwest  from  Richmond, 
Lee*s  last  possible  line  of  escape.  Grant  added 
that  the  final  crisis  was  very  near  and  that  his  only 


THE  END:  1865  385 

anxiety  was  lest  Lee  might  escape  before  Sheri- 
dan cut  the  Richmond  line  southwest  to  Danville. 
Lincoln  said  he  hoped  the  war  would  end  at  once 
and  with  no  more  bloodshed.  Grant  and  Sherman, 
however,  could  not  guarantee  that  Davis  might 
not  force  Lee  and  Johnston  to  one  last  desperate 
fight.  Lincoln  added  that  all  he  wanted  after  the 
surrender  was  to  get  the  Confederates  back  to  their 
civil  life  and  make  them  good  contented  citizens. 
As  for  Davis:  well,  there  once  was  a  man  who, 
having  taken  the  pledge,  was  asked  if  he  wouldn't 
let  his  host  put  just  a  drop  of  brandy  in  the  lemon- 
ade. His  answer  was:  "See  here,  if  you  do  it  un- 
beknownst, I  won't  object."  From  the  way  that 
Lincoln  told  this  story  Grant  and  Sherman  both 
inferred  that  he  would  be  glad  to  see  Davis  dis- 
embarrass the  reunited  States  of  his  annoying 
presence. 

This  twenty-eighth  of  March  saw  the  last  fare- 
wells between  the  President  and  his  naval  and 
military  lieutenants  at  the  front.  Admiral  Porter 
immediately  wrote  down  a  full  account  of  the  con- 
versations, from  which,  together  with  Grant's  and 
Sherman's  strong  corroboration,  we  know  that 
Lincoln  entirely  approved  of  the  terms  which 
Grant  gave  Lee,  and  that  he  would  have  approved 

25 


386        CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

quite  as  heartily  of  those  which  Sherman  gave  to 
Johnston. 

Next  morning  the  final  race,  pursuit,  defeat,  and 
victory  began.  Grant  marched  all  his  spare  men 
west  to  cut  Lee  off  completely.  He  left  enough  to 
hold  his  lines  at  Petersburg,  in  case  Lee  should 
remain;  and  he  arranged  with  Sherman  for  a  com- 
bined movement,  to  begin  on  the  tenth  of  April,  in 
case  Johnston  and  Lee  should  try  to  join  each 
other.  But  he  felt  fairly  confident  that  he  could 
run  Lee  down  while  Sherman  tackled  Johnston. 

On  the  first  of  April  Sheridan  won  a  hard  fight 
at  Five  Forks,  southwest  of  Petersburg.  On  Sun- 
day (the  second)  Lee  left  Petersburg  for  good, 
sending  word  to  Richmond.  That  morning  Davis 
rose  from  his  place  in  church  and  the  clergyman 
quietly  told  the  congregation  that  there  would  be 
no  evening  service.  On  Monday  morning  Grant 
rode  into  Petersburg,  and  saw  the  Confederate 
rearguard  clubbed  together  round  the  bridge.  "I 
had  not  the  heart,"  said  Grant,  "to  turn  the  artil- 
lery upon  such  a  mass  of  defeated  and  fleeing  men, 
and  I  hoped  to  capture  them  soon."  On  Tuesday 
Grant  closed  his  orders  to  Sherman  with  the  words, 
"Rebel  armies  are  now  the  only  strategic  points 
to  strike  at,"  and  himself  pressed  on  relentlessly. 


THE  END:  1865  387 

Late  next  afternoon  a  horseman  in  full  Con- 
federate uniform  suddenly  broke  cover  from  the 
enemy  side  of  a  dense  wood  and  dashed  straight  at 
the  headquarter  staflF.  The  escort  made  as  if  to 
seize  him.  But  a  staff  officer  called  out,  *'  How  d'ye 
do,  Campbell?"  *  This  famous  scout  then  took  a 
wad  of  tobacco  out  of  his  mouth,  a  roll  of  tinfoil 
out  of  the  wad,  and  a  piece  of  tissue  paper  out  of 
the  tinfoil.  When  Grant  read  Sheridan's  report 
ending  "I  wish  you  were  here"  (that  is,  at  Jeters- 
ville,  halfway  between  Petersburg  and  Appomat- 
tox) ,  he  immediately  got  off  his  black  pony,  mount- 
ed Cincinnati,  and  rode  the  twenty  miles  at  speed, 
to  learn  that  Lee  was  heading  due  west  for  Farm- 
ville,  less  than  thirty  miles  from  Appomattox. 

On  Thursday  the  sixth,  Lee,  closely  beset  in 
flank  and  rear,  lost  seven  thousand  men  at  Sailor's 
Creek,  mostly  as  prisoners.  The  heroes  of  this 
fight  were  six  hundred  Federals,  who,  having  gone 
to  blow  up  High  Bridge  on  the  Appomattox,  found 
their  retreat  cut  off  by  the  whole  Confederate  ad- 
vanced guard.  Under  Colonel  Francis  Washburn, 
Fourth  Massachusetts  Cavalry,  and  Colonel  Theo- 
dore Read,  of  General  Ord's  staff,  this  dauntless  six 
hundred  charged  again  and  again  until,  their  lead- 
ers killed  and  most  of  the  others  dead  or  wounded. 


CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

the  rest  surrendered.  They  had  gained  their  ob- 
ject by  holding  up^  Lee's  cojumn  long  enough  to  let 
its  wagon  train  be  raided. 

-  Grant,  now  feeling  that  his  hold  on  Lee  could 
not  be  shaken  off,  wrojte  him  a  letter  on  Friday 
afternoon,  saying:  *^he  reialte'.  ©f ;  the  last. week 
must  convince  you  of  the  hopelessness  of  further 
resistance."  That  night  Lpe  replied  asking  what 
terms  Grant  proposed  to  offer.  Next  morning 
Grant  wrote  again  to  propose  a  meeting,  and  Lee 
answered  to  say  he  was  willing  to  treat  for  peace. 
Grant  at  once  informed  him  that  the  only  subject 
for  discussion  was  the  surrender  of  the  army.  That 
evening  Federal  cavalry  under  General  George 
A.  Custer  raided  Appomattox  Station,  five  miles 
southwest  of  the  Court  House,  and  held  up  four 
trains.  A  few  hours  later,  early  on  Sunday,  the 
famous  ninth  of  April,  1865,  Lee's  advanced  guard 
was  astounded  to  find  its  way  disputed  so  far  west. 
It  attacked  with  desperation,  hoping  to  break 
through  what  seemed  to  be  a  cavalry  screen  before 
the  infantry  came  up;  but  when  Lee's  main  body 
joined  in,  only  to  find  a  solid  mass  of  Federal  in- 
fantry straight  across  its  one  way  out,  Lee  at  once 
sent  forward  a  white  flag. 

Grant,   overwrought    with   anxiety,   had  been 


THE  END:  I860  389 

suffering  from  an  excruciating  headache  all  night 
long.  But  the  moment  he  opened  Lee's  note,  offering 
to  discuss  surrender,  he  felt  as  well  as  ever,  and  in- 
stantly wrote  back  to  say  he  was  ready.  Pushing 
rapidly  on  he  met  Lee  at  McLean's  private  resi- 
dence near  Appomattox  Court  House.  There  was 
a  remarkable  contrast  between  the  appearance  of 
the  two  commanders.  Grant,  only  forty-three, 
and  without  a  tinge  of  gray  in  his  brown  hair,  took 
an  inch  or  two  off  his  medium  height  by  stooping 
keenly  forward,  and  had  nothing  in  his  shabby 
private's  uniform  to  show  his  rank  except  the  three- 
starred  shoulder-straps.  When  the  main  business 
was  over,  and  he  had  time  to  notice  details,  he 
apologized  to  Lee,  explaining  that  the  extreme 
rapidity  of  his  movements  had  carried  him  far 
ahead  of  his  baggage.  Lee's  aide-de-camp.  Colonel 
Charles  Marshall,  afterwards  explained  that  when 
the  Confederates  had  been  obliged  to  reduce  them- 
selves simply  to  v/hat  they  stood  in,  each  officer  had 
naturally  put  on  his  best.  Hence  Lee's  magnifi- 
cent appearance  in  a  brand-new  general's  uniform 
with  the  jeweled  sword  of  honor  that  Virginia 
had  given  him.  Well  over  six  feet  tall,  straight 
as  an  arrow  in  spite  of  his  fifty-eight  years  and 
snow-white,    war-grown    beard,    still     extremely 


390        CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

handsome,  and  full  of  equal  dignity  and  charm, 
he  looked,  from  head  to  foot,  the  perfect  leader 
of  devoted  men. 

Grant,  holding  out  his  hand  in  cordial  greeting, 
began  the  conversation  by  saying:  "I  met  you 
once  before.  General  Lee,  while  we  were  serving  in 
Mexico.  .  .  .  I  have  always  remembered  your  ap- 
pearance, and  I  think  I  should  have  recognized 
you  anywhere."  After  some  other  personal  talk 
Lee  said:  "I  suppose.  General  Grant,  that  the 
object  of  our  present  meeting  is  fully  understood. 
I  asked  to  see  you  in  order  to  ascertain  on  what 
terms  you  would  receive  the  surrender  of  my  army." 
Grant  answered  that  ojQScers  and  men  were  to  be 
paroled  and  disqualified  from  serving  again  till 
properly  exchanged,  and  that  all  warlike  and  other 
stores  were  to  be  treated  as  captured.  Lee  bowed 
assent,  said  that  was  what  he  had  expected,  and 
presently  suggested  that  Grant  should  commit  the 
terms  to  writing  on  the  spot.  When  Grant  got  to 
the  end  of  the  terms  already  discussed  his  eye  fell 
on  Lee's  splendid  sword  of  honor,  and  he  imme- 
diately added  the  sentence:  "This  will  not  em- 
brace the  side-arms  of  the  oflBcers,  nor  their  pri- 
vate horses  or  baggage."  When  Lee  read  over  the 
draft  he  flushed  slightly  on  coming  to  this  generous 


THE  END:  1865  391 

proviso  and  gratefully  said:  "This  will  have  a  very 
happy  effect  upon  my  army."  Grant  then  asked 
him  if  he  had  any  suggestions  to  make;  whereupon 
he  said  that  the  mounted  Confederates,  unlike  the 
Federals,  owned  their  horses.  Before  he  had  time 
to  ask  a  favor  Grant  said  that  as  these  horses 
would  be  invaluable  for  men  returning  to  civil  life 
they  could  all  be  taken  home  after  full  proof  of 
ownership.  Lee  again  flushed  and  gratefully  re- 
plied :  "  This  will  have  the  best  possible  effect  upon 
the  men.  It  will  be  very  gratifying  and  do  much 
toward  conciliating  our  people." 

While  the  documents  were  being  written  out  for 
signature  Grant  introduced  the  generals  and  staff 
officers  to  Lee.  Then  Lee  once  more  led  the  con- 
versation back  to  business  by  saying  he  wished  to 
return  his  prisoners  to  Grant  at  the  earliest  possible 
moment  because  he  had  nothing  more  for  them  to 
eat.  *'I  have,  indeed,  nothing  for  my  own  men," 
he  added.  They  had  been  living  on  the  scantiest 
supply  of  parched  corn  for  several  days;  and  this 
famine  fare,  combined  with  their  utter  lack  of  all 
other  supplies  —  especially  medicine  and  clothing 
—  was  wearing  them  away  faster  than  any  "war  of 
attrition"  in  the  open  field.  After  heartily  agree- 
ing that  the  prisoners  should  immediately  return 


CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

Grant  said :  "I  will  take  steps  at  once  to  have  your 
army  supplied  with  rations.  Suppose  I  send  over 
twenty-five  thousand;  do  you  think  that  will  be 
a  sufficient  supply?"  "I  think  it  will  be  ample,'* 
said  Lee,  who,  after  a  pause,  added:  "and  it  wiU 
be  a  great  relief,  I  assure  you.'* 

Then  Lee  rose,  shook  Grant  warmly  by  the 
hand,  bowed  to  the  others,  and  left  the  room.  As 
he  appeared  on  the  porch  all  the  Union  officers  in 
the  grounds  rose  respectfully  and  saluted  him. 
While  the  Confederate  orderly  was  bridling  the 
horses  Lee  stood  alone,  gazing  in  unutterable  grief 
across  the  valley  to  where  the  renmant  of  his  army 
lay.  Then,  as  he  mounted  Traveler,  every  Union 
officer  followed  Grant's  noble  example  by  standing 
bareheaded  till  horse  and  rider  had  disappeared 
from  view. 

Grant  next  sent  off  the  news  to  Washington  and, 
true  to  his  sterhng  worth,  immediately  stopped  the 
salutes  which  some  of  his  enthusiastic  soldiers  were 
already  beginning  to  fire.  *'The  war  is  over," 
he  told  his  staff,  "the  rebels  are  our  countrymen 
again,  and  the  best  sign  of  rejoicing  after  the  vic- 
tory will  be  to  abstain  from  all  demonstrations  in 
the  field." 

Li  the  meantime  Lee  had  returned  to  his  own 


THE  END:  1865  393 

lines,  along  which  he  now  rode  for  the  last  time. 
The  reserve  with  which  he  had  steeled  his  heart 
during  the  surrender  gave  way  completely  when  he 
came  to  bid  his  men  farewell.  After  a  few  simple 
words,  advising  his  devoted  veterans  to  become 
good  citizens  of  their  reunited  country,  the  tears 
could  no  longer  be  kept  back.  Then,  as  he  rode 
slowly  on,  from  the  remnant  of  one  old  regiment  to 
another,  the  men  broke  ranks,  and,  mostly  silent 
with  emotion,  pressed  round  their  loved  com- 
mander, to  take  his  hand,  to  touch  his  sword,  or 
fondly  stroke  his  splendid  gray  horse,  Traveler, 
the  same  that  had  so  often  carried  him  victorious 
through  the  hard-fought  day. 

North  and  South  had  scarcely  grasped  the  full 
significance  of  Lee's  surrender,  when,  only  five 
days  later,  Lincoln  was  assassinated.  "It  would  be 
impossible  for  me,"  said  Grant,  "to  describe  the 
feeling  that  overcame  me  at  the  news.  I  knew  his 
goodness  of  heart,  and  above  all  his  desire  to  see  all 
the  people  of  the  United  States  enter  again  upon 
the  full  privileges  of  citizenship  with  equality 
among  all.  I  felt  that  reconstruction  had  been 
set  back,  no  telling  how  far."  *'0f  all  the  men  I 
ever  met,"  said  Sherman,  "he  seemed  to  possess 


394        CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

more  of  the  elements  of  greatness,  combined  with 
goodness,  than  any  other." 

On  the  very  day  of  the  assassination  Sherman 
had  written  to  Johnston  offering  the  same  terms 
Grant  had  given  Lee  and  Lincoln  had  most  heartily 
approved.  Three  days  later,  on  the  seventeenth, 
just  as  Sherman  was  entering  the  train  for  his  meet- 
ing with  Johnston,  the  operator  handed  him  a  tele- 
gram announcing  the  assassination.  Enjoining 
secrecy  till  he  returned  Sherman  took  the  telegram 
with  him  and  showed  it  to  Johnston,  whom  he 
watched  intently.  "The  perspiration  came  out 
on  his  forehead,"  Sherman  wrote,  *'and  he  did  not 
attempt  to  conceal  his  distress.  He  denounced  the 
act  as  a  disgrace  to  the  age  and  hoped  I  did  not 
charge  it  to  the  Confederate  Government.  I  told 
him  I  could  not  believe  that  he  or  General  Lee  or 
the  officers  of  the  Confederate  army  could  possibly 
be  privy  to  acts  of  assassination."  When  Sherman 
got  back  to  Raleigh  he  published  the  news  in  general 
orders,  and  experienced  the  supreme  satisfaction  of 
finding  that  not  one  man  in  all  that  mournful  army 
had  to  be  restrained  from  a  single  act  of  revenge. 

After  much  misunderstanding  with  Washington 
now  in  lesser  hands,  the  surrender  of  Johnston's 
and  the  other  Confederate  armies  was  effected. 


THE  END:  1865  395 

Each  body  of  troops  laid  down  its  arms  and  quietly 
dispersed.  One  day  the  bugles  called,  the  camp 
fires  burned,  and  comrades  were  together  in  the 
ranks.  The  next,  like  morning  mists,  they  disap- 
peared, thenceforth  to  be  remembered  and  admired 
only  as  the  heroes  of  a  hopeless  cause. 

It  was  a  very  different  scene  through  which  their 
rivals  marched  into  lasting  fame  with  all  the  pride, 
pomp,  and  circumstance  of  war.  On  the  twenty- 
third  and  twenty-fourth  of  May, in  perfect  weather, 
and  in  the  stirring  presence  of  a  loyal,  vast,  en- 
thusiastic throng,  the  Union  armies  were  reviewed 
in  Washington.  For  over  six  full  hours  each  day 
the  troops  marched  past  —  the  very  flower  of  those 
who  had  come  back  victorious.  The  route  was 
flagged  from  end  to  end  with  Stars  and  Stripes,  and 
banked  with  friends  of  each  and  every  regiment 
there.  Between  these  banks,  and  to  the  sound 
of  thrilling  martial  music,  the  long  blue  column 
flowed  —  a  living  stream  of  men  whose  bayonets 
made  its  surface  flash  like  burnished  silver  under 
the  glorious  sun. 

Then,  when  the  pageantry  was  finished,  and 
the  volunteers  that  formed  the  vast-  bulk  of  those 


396        CAPTAINS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

magnificent  Federal  armies  had  again  become 
American  civilians  in  thought  and  word  and  deed, 
these  steadfast  men,  whose  arms  had  saved  the 
Union  in  the  field,  were  first  in  peace  as  they  had 
been  in  war:  first  in  the  reconstruction  of  their 
country's  interrupted  life,  first  in  recognizing  all 
that  was  best  In  the  splendid  fighters  with  whom 
they  had  crossed  swords,  and  first  —  incomparably 
first  —  in  keeping  one  and  indivisible  the  reunited 
home  land  of  both  North  and  South. 


BIBLIOGRAPHICAL   NOTE 

Thousands  of  books  have  been  written  about  the  Civil 
War;  and  more  about  the  armies  than  about  the  navies 
and  the  civil  interests  together.  Yet,  even  about  the 
armies,  there  are  very  few  that  give  a  just  idea  of  how 
every  part  of  the  war  was  correlated  with  every  other 
part  and  with  the  very  complex  whole;  while  few- 
er still  give  any  idea  of  how  closely  the  navies  were 
correlated  with  the  armies  throughout  the  long 
amphibious  campaigns. 

The  only  works  mentioned  here  are  either  those  con- 
taining the  original  evidence  or  those  written  by  ex- 
perts directly  from  the  original  evidence.  And  of 
course  there  are  a  good  many  works  belonging  to  both 
these  classes  for  which  no  room  can  be  found  in  a 
bibliography  so  very  brief  as  the  present  one  must  be. 

The  War  of  the  Rebellion:  a  Comjiilation  of  the 
Official  Records  of  the  Union  and  Confederate  Armies, 
128  vols.  (1880-1901),  and  Official  Records  of  the 
Union  and  Confederate  Navies  in  the  War  of  the 
Rebellion,  26  vols.  (1894-),  form  two  magnificent  col- 
lections of  original  evidence  published  by  the  United 
States  Government.  But  they  have  some  gaps  which 
nothing  else  can  fill.  Battles  and  Leaders  of  the  Civil 
War  (1887-89),  written  by  competent  witnesses  on 
both  sides,  gives  the  gist  of  the  story  in  four  volumes 

397 


398  BIBLIOGRAPHICAL  NOTE 

(published  afterwards  in  eight) .  The  Rebellion  Record, 
12  vols.  (1862-68),  edited  by  Frank  Moore,  forms  an 
interesting  collection  of  non-official  documents.  The 
Story  of  the  Civil  War,  4  vols.  (1895-1913),  begun  by 
J.  C.  Ropes,  and  continued  by  W.  R.  Livermore,  is  an 
historical  work  of  real  value.  Larned's  Literature  of 
American  History  contains  an  excellent  bibliography; 
but  it  needs  supplementing  by  bibliographies  of  the 
present  century.  Inquiring  readers  should  consult  the 
bibliographies  in  volumes  20  and  21  (by  J.  K.  Hosmer) 
in  the  American  Nation  series . 

There  are  many  works  of  a  more  special  kind  that  de- 
serve particular  attention.  General  E.  P.  Alexander's 
Military  Memoirs  of  a  Confederate  (1907),  the  Trans- 
actions of  the  Military  Historical  Society  of  Massa- 
chusetts, Major  John  Bigelow's  The  Campaign  of 
Chancellor sville  (1910),  and  J.  D.  Cox's  Military  Rem- 
iniscences, 2  vols.  (1900),  are  admirable  specimens 
of  this  very  extensive  class. 

The  two  greatest  generals  on  the  Northern  side  have 
written  their  own  memoirs,  and  written  them  exceed- 
ingly well:  Personal  Memoirs  of  U.  S.  Grant,  2  vols. 
(1885-86),  and  Memoirs  of  General  W.  T.  Sherman^  2 
vols.  (1886).  But  the  two  greatest  on  the  Southern 
side  wrote  nothing  themselves;  and  no  one  else  has 
written  a  really  great  life  of  that  very  great  com- 
mander, Robert  Lee.  Fitzhugh  Lee's  enthusiastic 
sketch  of  his  uncle.  General  Lee  (1894),  is  one  of  the 
several  second-rate  books  on  the  subject.  Colonel  G. 
F.  R.  Henderson's  Stonewall  Jackson  and  the  American 
Civil  War,  2  vols.  (1898),  is,  on  the  other  hand,  among 
the  best  of  war  biographies.  Henderson's  strategical 
study  of  the  Valley  Campaign  is  a  masterpiece .    Two 


BIBLIOGRAPHICAL  NOTE  399 

good  works  of  very  different  kinds  are:  A  History  of 
the  Civil  War  in  the  United  States  (1905),  by  W. 
Birkbeck  Wood  and  Major  J.  E.  Edmonds,  and  A 
History  of  the  United  States  from  the  Compromise  of  1850, 
8  vols.  (1893-1919),  by  James  Ford  Rhodes.  The  first 
is  military,  the  second  political.  Mr.  Rhodes  has  also 
written  a  single  volume  History  of  the  Civil  War  (1917). 
American  Campaigns  by  Major  M.  F.  Steele,  issued 
under  the  supervision  of  the  War  Department  (1909), 
deals  chiefly  with  the  military  operations  of  the  Civil 
War. 

The  naval  side  of  this,  as  of  all  other  wars,  has  been 
far  too  much  neglected.  But  that  great  historian  of 
sea-power.  Admiral  Mahan,  has  told  the  best  of  the 
story  in  his  Admiral  Farragut  (1892) . 

An  interesting  contemporary  account  of  the  war  will 
be  found  in  the  five  volumes  of  Appleton's  American 
Annual  Cyclopcedia  for  the  years  from  1861  to  1865. 
B.  J.  Lossing's  Pictorial  History  of  the  Civil  War,  3 
vols.  (1866-69),  and  Harper's  Pictorial  History  of  the 
Rebellion,  2  vols.  (1868),  give  graphic  pictures  of 
military  life  as  seen  by  contemporaries.  Personal 
reminiscences  of  the  war,  of  varying  merit,  have  multi- 
plied rapidly  in  recent  years.  These  are  appraised  for 
the  unwary  reader  in  the  bibliographies  already  men- 
tioned. Frank  Wilkeson's  Recollections  of  a  Private 
Soldier  in  the  Army  of  the  Potomac  (1887),  George  C. 
Eggleston's  A  Rebel's  Recollections  (1905),  and  Mrs. 
Mary  B.  Chestnut's  Diary  from  Dixie  (1905)  are 
among  the  best  of  these  personal  recollections. 

The  political  and  diplomatic  history  has  been  dealt 
with  already  in  the  two  preceding  Chronicles.  Abraham 
Lincoln:  a  History,  by  John  G.  Nicolay  and  John  Hay, 


400  BIBLIOGRAPHICAL  NOTE 

in  ten  volumes  (1890),  and  The  Complete  Works  of 
Abraham  Lincoln,  in  twelve  volumes  (1905),  form  the 
quarry  from  which  all  true  accounts  of  his  war  states- 
manship must  be  built  up.  Lord  Charnwood's  Abra- 
ham Lincoln  (1917)  is  an  admirable  summary.  To  these 
titles  should  be  added  Gideon  Welles's  Diary,  3  vols. 
(1911),  and,  on  the  Confederate  side,  Jefferson  Davis's 
The  Rise  and  Fall  of  the  Confederate  Government,  % 
vols.  (1881),  and  Alexander  H.  Stephens's^  Constitu- 
tional View  of  the  Late  War  Between  the  States,  2  vols. 
(1870).  The  best  life  of  Jefferson  Davis  is  that  by 
William  E.  Dodd  in  the  American  Crisis  Biographies 
(1907).  W.  H.  Russell's  My  Diary  NoHh  and  South 
(1863)  records  the  impressions  of  an  intelligent  foreign 
observer. 

The  present  Chronicle  is  based  entirely  on  the  origi- 
nal evidence,  with  the  convenient  use  only  of  such 
works  as  have  themselves  been  written  by  qualified 
experts  directly  from  the  original  evidence. 


INDEX 


Alabama,  secedes,  56;  in  1864, 
335;  threatened,  336 

Alabama,  Confederate  raider, 
69,  70,  311-12;  Kearsarge 
and.  69,  313-17;  and 
Hatteras,  69,  115 

Albatross,  ship,  265 

Albemarle,  Confederate  ram, 
Cushing  destroys,  303,  318- 
319 

Albemarle  Sound,  command 
lost,  93 

Alexandria  (Louisiana),  State 
Seminary  of  Learning  and 
Military  Academy,  6-7 

Allatoona  (Georgia),  Johnston 
evacuates,  348;  Corse's  de- 
fense of,  369-70 

"Anaconda  policy,"  184 

Anderson,  Colonel  Charles, 
quotes  Lee,  11 

Anderson,  Major  Robert,  com- 
mands at  Fort  Moultrie,  2; 
at  Fort  Sumter,  3,  12-15; 
surrender,  15;  leaves  Fort 
Sumter,  16;  appointed  to 
Kentucky  command,  29; 
superseded  by  Sherman,  120 

Annapolis,  Union  troops  at, 
17 

Antietam  (Maryland),  battle, 
178,  245-46,  292 

Apache  Caiion,  fight  in,  166 

Appomattox  Court  House 
(Virginia),  Lee's  surrender, 
327,  389 

Appomattox  Station,  Custer 
raids.  388 


Aquia,  McClellan's  troops  at, 
228-29,  231,  234 

Archer,  J.  T.,  Confederate 
brigadier,  298 

Arizona,  "War  in  the  West," 
165 

Arkansas  secedes,  56 

Arkansas,  Confederate  ram, 
109 

Arkansas  Post,  capture  of, 
164 

Arlington,  home  of  General 
Lee.  19 

Armstrong,  Commodore,  at 
Pensacola,  4 

Army,   Confederate,   Act  pro- 
viding for  enlistment,  11-12 
at    Harper's    Ferry,    21-22 
Jackson  and,  21-22,  23-24 
lack  of  equipment,  63,  244 
advantages,      76-77;      con- 
scription, 78;  munitions,  78 
relations    with    Federals    at 
Vicksburg,    276;     Army    of 
Northern  Virginia,  336;  un- 
renewable      wastage,      355; 
number    of    troops     (1865), 
380;  Lee's  farewell  to,  393 

Army,  Federal,  enlistments, 
33;  Congress  votes  troops 
and  money,  34,  40;  McDow- 
ell's, 39-40;  regulars  in,  79; 
number  of  troops,  79-80; 
conscription,  81;  organi- 
zation, 82;  Grant's  (1862), 
148;  Army  of  the  Cumber- 
land, 164,  279;  Army  of  the 
Mississippi,    160;    Army    of 


26 


401 


402 


INDEX 


Army,  Federal — Continued 
the  Ohio,  160,  279;  well 
equipped,  244;  Army  of  the 
Potomac,  254-55,  287,  334, 
336,  351,  354,  356;  Army  of 
the  Tennessee,  160,  260,  280, 
358;  Army  of  Virginia,  227, 
243;  relations  with  Con- 
federates at  Vicksburg,  276; 
Army  of  the  James,  334,  336, 
340,  356;  reviewed  in  Wash- 
ington, 395 

Army  Act,  Provisional  Con- 
federate Congress  passes, 
11-12 

Ashby,  Turner,  Confederate 
cavalry  leader,  205;  at 
Harrisonburg,  207;  Valley 
raid,  212;  death,  215-16 

Ashby's  Gap,  Johnston  crosses 
Blue  Ridge  at,  45 

Ashland  (Virginia),  Jackson 
at,  223 

Atlanta,  Southern  cannon 
made  at,  64;  Northern  ob- 
jective, 327,  336;  battle, 
358-59;  Sherman  announces 
fall  of,  361;  effect  of  victory, 
364;  Sherman's  headquar- 
ters, 366-67;  last  action  near, 
368-70 

Atlanta,  Confederate  ram  cap- 
tured by  Weehawken,  309 

Averell,  W.  D.,  cavalry  leader, 
355,  357 

Bailey,  Colonel  Joseph,  330 

Bailey,  Captain  Theodorus,  100 

Balloons,  63 

Baltimore,  Secessionists  at 
Fort  Sumter,  3;  Massa- 
chusetts troops  mobbed  in, 
16;  Jackson's  plan  to  occupy, 
194 

Baltimore  and  Ohio  Railway, 
Jackson  destroys  workshop, 
87 

Banks,  General  N.  P.,  super- 
sedes  General   Butler,    113; 


on  the  Mississippi  (1862), 
113,  114,  167;  (1863),  261, 
264-65,  272,  273;  commands 
in  Shenandoah  Valley,  198; 
in  Shenandoah  campaign, 
199,  200,  203,  204,  205,  207. 
208,  210,  211,  212,  235;  in- 
capacity, 261,  265,  273;  com- 
mands Red  River  Expedi- 
tion, 318,  329,  330,  337,  338 

Barrancas  Barracks,  3 

Bartow,  General  F.  S.,  Bull 
Run,  48;  killed,  52 

Baton  Rouge,  Union  Arsenal 
at,  6;  Farragut  captures, 
107;  Confederate  attack, 
110;  Union  Navy  wins  way 
to, 117 

"Battle  above  the  Clouds," 
Lookout  Mountain,  284 

Baylor,  Captain  J.  R.,  pro- 
claims himself  Governor  of 
New  Mexico,  165-66 

Beauregard,  General  P.  G.  T., 
sons  at  Louisiana  Military 
Academy,  7;  and  Fort  Sum- 
ter, 12,  15-16;  on  the  Poto- 
mac, 85;  at  Bull  Run,  36,  45, 
49;  preparation  for  Shiloh, 
146,  147;  battle  of  Shiloh, 
153-54;  Corinth,  156;  and 
Confederate  plans,  195; 
attacks  Butler,  340;  tele- 
gram to  Lee,  348-49;  com- 
mand of  troops  opposed  to 
Sherman,  371 

Beauregard,  Fort,  92 

Beaver  Dam  Creek  (Virginia), 
Porter's  front  at  Mechanics- 
ville,  223 

Bee,  General  B.  E.,  Bull  Run, 
49;  killed,  52 

Bell,  Commodore  H.  H.,  99, 
114 

Belmont  (Missouri),  Grant 
attacks,  92,  121 

Benjamin,  J.  P.,  Confederate 
Secretary  of  War,  70,  101, 
182 


INDEX 


403 


Benton,  flagship,  266 

Bentonville  (North  Carolina), 
battle,  382-83 

Bering  Sea,  Shenandoah  in,  69 

Bermuda  Hundred  (Virginia), 
Butler  seizes,  339 

Beverly  (West  Virginia),  Con- 
federates retire  to,  30 

Big  Black  River  (Mississippi), 
Grant's  victory  at,  271 

Birge,  H.  W.,  and  sharp- 
shooters, 133 

Bixby,  Mrs.,  letter  to,  190- 
191 

Blackburn's  Ford  (Virginia), 
McDowell  at,  43,  4G 

Blair,  General  F.  P.,  fight  for 
Missouri,  25.  26.  27,  57, 
131;  as  a  general,  261 

Blockade,  declared,  16;  effec- 
tiveness. 84,  91-92. 113,  244, 
230;  blockade-runners.  91- 
92,  307-08;  on  Mississippi. 
93;  attempts  to  break,  308- 
309.  318;  double  line  neces- 
sary, 308 

Bloody  Angle,  salient  in  Spot- 
sylvania action,  343,  344 

Bonham,  General  M.  L.,  Bull 
Run,  48 

Boonville  (Missouri),  battle, 
28,  118 

Boston  Mountains,  Confeder- 
ates hold,  142 

Bowling  Green  (Kentucky), 
Johnston  at,  124,  129;  John- 
ston abandons,  141 

Brackett,  Colonel  A.  G., 
quoted,  10-11 

Bragg,  General  Braxton,  287, 
325-26;  at  Baton  Rouge,  6; 
preparations  for  Shiloh,  146; 
succeeds  Beauregard,  161; 
invasion  of  Kentucky,  161, 
162,  243;  march  on  Nash- 
ville, 164;  sends  out  Morgan, 
278;  Chickamauga,  279; 
Chattanooga,  281,  305;  Mis- 
sionary Ridge,  282,  283 


Brandy  Station  (Virginia), 
cavalry  combat  at,  288 

Brentwood  (Tennessee),  Scho- 
field  at,  377 

Brice's  Cross  Roads  (Missis- 
sippi), Forrest  defeats  Stur- 
gis  at.  357 

Bristoe  Station  (Virginia), 
bridge  burned,  233 

Brooklyn,  fight  with  Manassas, 
102;  against  Fort  Morgan, 
322 

Brown,  John,  20,  130 

Brown,  J.  E.,  Governor  of 
Georgia,  78.  367-68 

Bruinsburg  (Louisiana),  Grant 
lands  force  at,  267,  268 

Buchanan,  Commodore  Frank- 
lin, 87 

Buckingham,  General  C.  P., 
and  McClellan,  248 

Buckner,  General  S.  B.,  as  a 
general,  136;  Fort  Donelson, 
138;  surrender,  139,  140; 
and  Grant.  140 

Buell,  General  D.  C,  commands 
in  West,  122;  and  Halleck, 
123;  preparations  for  Shiloh, 
146,  148,  149;  battle  of 
Shiloh,  153,  154;  commands 
Army  of  the  Ohio,  160;  end 
of  service.  162 

Buford.  John,  cavalry  leader 
at  Gettysburg,  293,  295, 
"196,  297,  298 

Bull  Run,  First  campaign.  S3, 
84.  171,  172,  181.  193;  pub- 
lic clamor  for  action,  34,  39- 
40;  disposition  of  forces,  34- 
35,  36;  Confederate  problem, 
36-37;  Falling  Waters,  38- 
39;  Federal  preparations, 
41-43;  Blackburn's  Ford,  43; 
McDowell  advances,  44; 
Confederate  preparations 
and  plans,  44-46;  Federal 
advance.  47;  Confederate 
rout,  48-49;  Confederates 
rally,  49-50;  Stuart's  charge. 


404 


INDEX 


Bull  Run — Continued 

51;  Federal  retreat,  53-54; 
losses,  54;  importance,  54- 
55;  number  of  troops,  148 

Bull  Run,  Second  campaign, 
maneuvering  for,  161,  193; 
battle,  237-43 

Burns,  John,  at  Gettysburg, 
299 

Burnside,  General  A.  E.,  228; 
failure  in  Virginia,  185; 
succeeds  McClellan,  248;  as 
a  general,  249,  250;  at 
Fredericksburg,  249,  250, 
251;  "Mud  March,"  251, 
252,  255,  263-G4;  Knoxville, 
279,  284;  at  Petersburg, 
359 

Butler,  General  Benjamin, 
Bull  Run,  35;  in  North 
Carolina,  85;  Mississippi 
campaign,  103;  Banks  super- 
sedes, 113;  against  Fort 
Fisher,  325;  commands 
Array  of  the  James,  334,  336, 
340,  342;  at  Bermuda  Hun- 
dred, 339;  retreat  from 
Drewry's  Bluff,  849 

Cairo  (Illinois),  Grant  in  com- 
mand at,  119,  121,  122,  261 

Caldwell,  Lieutenant,  of  the 
Itasca,  99 

California,  invasion  of,  165, 
167 

Cameron,  Simon,  Secretary  of 
War,  33-34,  120;  and  Sher- 
man, 177;  Stanton  succeeds, 
195 

Canby.  Colonel  E.  R.  S.,  at 
Valverde,  166 

Carolinas,  danger  from  West 
Virginia,  29;  secede,  56; 
effective  for  South  (1864), 
335;  menace  to,  336;  Sher- 
man's march  through,  372, 
381-82;  scene  of  action 
(1865),  380;  see  also  North 
Carolina,  South  Carolina 


Carondelet,  Federal  gunboat, 
109,  128,  133,  134,  135,  144- 
145 

Castle  Pinckney,  1,  2,  3 

Catlett's  Station  (Virginia), 
Shields  at,  204;  Banks  near, 
235 

Cayuga,  Federal  gunboat,  100, 
101 

Cedar  Creek  (Virginia),  Sheri- 
dan's ride  to,  363-64 

Cedar  Run  (Virginia),  battle, 
228 

Cemetery  Hill  (Gettysburg), 
Early  fails  at,  300 

Centreville  (Virginia),  in  Bull 
Run  campaign,  46,  47,  54; 
Confederate  base,  197;  Mc- 
Dowell's corps  at,  200 

Chambersburg  (Pennsylvania), 
Federals  at,  23;  Stuart's  raid, 
246-47 

Champion's  Hill  (Mississippi), 
fight  of,  271 

Chancellorsville  (Virginia), 
battle  of,  253,  257-58,  290; 
plans,  256;  Federal  defeat, 
287 

Charleston  (South  Carolina), 
forts,  1-2;  beginning  of 
hostilities,  3,  6;  United 
States  Arsenal  seized,  3; 
surrender  of  Fort  Sumter, 
12-16;  menaced,  253,  310; 
naval  combats  around,  308- 
309;  bombardment,  309;  de- 
fenses in  Southern  hands, 
326,  335,  380;  Savannah 
citizens  go  to,  376 

Charlestown  (West  Virginia), 
Patterson  advances  to,  39 

Charlotte  (North  Carolina). 
Southern  cannon  made  in, 
64 

Chase,  S.  P.,  Secretary  of 
Treasury,  179 

Chase,  Colonel  W.  H., 
demands  surrender  of  Fort 
Pickens,  5 


INDEX 


405 


Chattahoochee  River,  John- 
ston crosses,  358 

Chattanooga,  Buell's  objective, 
160;  Bragg's  base,  161,  162; 
Confederates  retire  on,  278; 
Bragg  at  (1863),  279,  281, 
305;  key  to  strategic  area, 
281;  battles  on  Missionary 
Ridge  and  Lookout  Moun- 
tain, 281-85;  significance  of 
victory,  285-86;  Grant  moves 
headquarters  from,  327; 
Grant  inspects,  328;  Federal 
headquarters,  336;  Sherman 
starts  from,  346 

Chestnut,  James,  Confederate 
officer  at  Fort  Sumter,  12- 
13 

Chickamauga  (Georgia),  bat- 
tle, 279-80,  305-06;  result  of 
Federal  defeat,  280 

Chickasaw  Bluffs  (Mississip- 
pi), Sherman's  assault,  164, 
260 

Cincinnati,  Grant's  charger, 
133,  328,  387 

Cincinnati  (Ohio),  Confederate 
objective,  162,  287 

City  Point  (Virginia),  Union 
leaders  meet  at,  384 

Civil  control  vs.  civil  interfer- 
ence, 33-34,  181-82,  329 

Clarksburg  (West  Virginia), 
Jackson  born  at,  24 

Cold  Harbor  (Virginia),  Battle 
of,  349,  350-53;  result,  353, 
354 

Columbia  (South  Carolina), 
Sherman  at,  382 

Columbus  (Kentucky),  Con- 
federates at,  121,  124 

Commerce,  importance  to 
South,  66;  protection  of, 
112;  Confederate  raiders 
interfere  with,  309-10 

Congress,  Confederate,  passes 
Army  and  Navy  Acts,  11- 
12 

Congress,  United  States,  vote 


for  army,  34;  Welles's  report 
to,  72;  authorizes  Promotion 
Board,  73 

Congress,  Merrimac  and,  88- 
89 

Conscription,  78,  80,  81;  Act, 
206 

Contraband,  importation  into 
South,  307-08 

Cooke,  General,  pursues  Stuart, 
219 

Copperheads,  59,  172,  173, 
174,  175;  see  also  Pacifists 

Corinth  (Mississippi),  Con- 
federate railway  junction  at, 
142;  Johnston's  line  at,  146, 
149;  Beauregard  retires  after 
Pittsburg  Landing,  154;  im- 
portance of  position,  156; 
Beauregard  at,  156-57;  Fed- 
eral advance  on,  157;  Con- 
federate objective,  161; 
Rosecrans  defeats  Van  Dorn 
at,  163 

Corse,  General  J.  M.,  at  Alla- 
toona,  369-70 

Cox,  General  J.  D.,  Kanawha 
campaign,  30;  newspaper  lies 
about,  176-77 

Craig,  Fort,  Valverde  near, 
166 

Crocker,  General  M.  M.,  261, 
262 

Crook,  General  George,  cav- 
alry commander,  337,  355, 
357 

Cross  Keys  (Virginia),  battle, 
216-17 

Culpeper,  Johnston  retires  to, 
197;  Lee  at,  248;  Grant's 
headquarters,  336 

Gulp's  Hill  (Gettysburg),  Con- 
federate victory  on,  300 

Cumberland,  Merrimac  and, 
89 

Cumberland  Gap,  Johnston 
threatened  at,  124;  Federal 
brigade  against,  126;  winter 
(1864),  328 


406 


INDEX 


Cummings  Point  (South  Caro- 
lina), batteries  at,  13 

Curtis,  General  S.  R.,  at  Pea 
Ridge,  122,  143;  compared 
with  Halleck.  123 

Cushing,  Lieutenant  A.  H., 
Pickett's  Charge,  302-03 

Cushing,  Lieutenant  W.  B., 
destroys  Albemarle,  303,  319 

Custer,  General  G.  A.,  at 
Cedar  Creek,  363;  raids 
Appomattox  Station,  388 

Custis,  Mary,  wife  of  Lee, 
19 

Cynthiana  (Kentucky),  Mor- 
gan defeated  at,  357 

Dalton  (Georgia),  Johnston 
at,  336,  347 

Dandelion,  U.  S.  S.,  Sherman 
on,  376 

Darrow,  Mrs.,  and  Lee,  9; 
quoted,  10 

Davis,  Flag-Officer  C.  H., 
Mississippi  flotilla  under, 
108;  succeeds  Foote,  158 

Davis,  Jefferson,  President  of 
Confederacy,  11;  personal 
characteristics,  78;  as  execu- 
tive, 78-79;  interference  in 
military  matters,  78-79, 
182-83,  252,  332;  stands  for 
"Independence  or  exter- 
mination," 178,  379;  mili- 
tary mistakes,  195,  281,  358; 
plans  flight  from  Richmond, 
202;  and  Lee,  219,  349,  381; 
and  Johnston,  358,  367; 
Lincoln  on,  385;  receives 
word  of  Southern  defeat 
(April  2,  1865),  386 

Deerhound,  English  yacht, 
314-15;  rescues  crew  of  Ala- 
bama, 317 

Donaldsonville  (Louisiana), 
Confederate  attack  on,  273 

Donelson,  Fort,  Johnston  holds, 
124,  126;  Confederates  from 
Fort   Henry  start  for,   128; 


importance,  129,  135;  Grant 
before,  135-40;  Floyd  and 
Pillow  escape  from,  139; 
surrender,  140-41;  results 
of  surrender,  141-42;  num- 
ber of  troops,  148 

Doubleday,  General  Abner, 
succeeds  Reynolds,  297;  at 
Gettysburg,  298 

Drayton,  Captain,  of  the 
Hartford,  321,  323 

Drewry's  Bluff  (Virginia), 
Confederate  defenses  at, 
202;  Federal  gunboats 
stopped  at,  204;  Butler's 
retreat  from,  349 

DuPont,  Admiral  S.  F.,  Port 
Royal  expedition,  93;  at 
Charleston,  309 

Eads,  J.   B.,  shipbuilder,  117, 

266 
Early,  General  Jubal,  advance 

toward     Washington,     356; 

attack  at  Cedar  Creek,  362- 

363 
Eaton,  John,  quoted,  187-88 
Elkhorn     Tavern      and      Pea 

Ridge,  battle  of,  143 
Ellet,    Colonel    Charles,    civil 

engineer,  158 
Emancipation,     Lincoln    and, 

178 
Ericsson,  John,  shipbuilder,  87 
Essex,    gunboat    before    Fort 

Henry,  127 
Ewell,  General  R.  S.,  in  Jack- 
son's Valley  campaign,  207; 

in  Shenandoah  Valley,  291; 

Gettysburg,    297,    298,   300, 

301 
Ezra  Church  (Georgia),  battle, 

359 

Fair  Oaks  (Virginia),  battle, 
218 

Fairfax  Court  House  (Vir- 
ginia), Confederate  confer- 
ence at,  195 


INDEX 


407 


Falling  Waters  (West  Vir- 
ginia), battle  in  Bull  Run 
campaign,  38-39 

Farragut,  Admiral  D.  G.,  330; 
efficiency,  73,  112,  263; 
commands  squadron  at  Ship 
Island,  94,  96;  ancestry,  94- 
95;  age,  95;  fleet,  97-98;  and 
his  subordinates,  95-96,  100; 
New  Orleans,  98-104,  105, 
107,  156;  at  Fort  St.  Philip, 
102-03;  orders,  106;  on  to 
Vicksburg,  106;  captures  Ba- 
ton Rouge,  107;  returns  to 
New  Orleans,  108,  110;  Gulf 
blockade,  110,  111;  becomes 
ranking  admiral.  111;  again 
at  New  Orleans,  113;  occu- 
pies Galveston,  114;  success 
of  1862,  115,  167;  Lincoln 
and,  181,  189;  prepares  to 
attack  Port  Hudson,  261, 
264-65;  and  Banks,  265, 
273;  goes  up  Mississippi, 
266;  again  to  New  Orleans, 
267;  leaves  for  New  York, 
278;  and  the  Navy  (1863- 
64),  307  et  seq.;  and  Mobile, 
319-20,  337,  349;  takes  Fort 
Morgan,  320-23;  at  Fort 
Fisher,  323-26 

Farrand,  Captain,  demands 
surrender  of  Fort  Pickens, 
5 

Ferragut,  Don  Pedro,  ancestor 
of  Farragut,  94-95 

Fingal,  blockade-runner  con- 
verted into  ram,  309 

Fisher,  Fort,  bombardment, 
323-26;  surrender,  326 

Five  Forks  (Virginia),  battle, 
386 

Florence  (Alabama),  Hood 
near,  371 

Florida,  beginning  of  war  in, 
3-6;  secedes,  56;  Confederate 
troops  withdrawn  from,  93 

Florida,  Confederate  raider, 
69,  115,  311 


Flournoy,  Colonel  T.  S.,  leader 
of  Virginians  in  Valley  cam- 
paign, 211 
Floyd,  J.  B.,  Secretary  of  War, 
2-3;     Kanawha     campaign, 
31;  Fort  Donelson,  136,  137; 
escape,  139 
Foote,     Flag-Officer     A.     H., 
ability,  122, 123;  Fort  Henry, 
126;  Fort  Donelson,  133, 134, 
135,  136,  137;  wounded,  135; 
Island    Number    Ten,    143; 
Davis  succeeds,  158 
Forrest,   General    N.    B.,    and 
Grant,    328;    cavalry    raids, 
339,  357,  368 
Foster,     Lieutenant     H.      C, 

276 
Fox,    G.    v..    Assistant  Secre- 
tary of  Navy,  72-73,  94 
France,   intervention  in   Mex- 
ico, 329 
Franklin     (Tennessee),    Hood 

reaches,  377 
Frayser's  Farm,  battle,  225 
Frederick      (Maryland),     Mc- 

Clellan's  army  at,  245 
Fredericksburg  (Virginia), 

McDowell  at,  200,  204,  213; 
Burnside's  headquarters, 
249;  battle,  250-51;  "Mud 
March,"  251,  252,  255,  263- 
264;  result  of  battle,  251-52; 
menace  to  Richmond  from, 
252,  253;  Lee  suspects  Fed- 
eral retirement  on,  342 
Fremont,  General  J.  C,  com- 
mands "  Western  Depart- 
ment," 118-19;  in  West  Vir- 
ginia, 119,  199,  200;  and 
Jackson's  Valley  campaign, 
208,  216;  dismissal,  172;  re- 
placed by  Sigel,  227 
Front  Royal  (Virginia),  Banks 
at,  210;  battle,  211-12; 
McDowell  arrives  at,  214; 
Jackson  destroys  Federal 
stores  at,  214-15 
Frost,  Brigadier-General  D.  M., 


408 


INDEX 


Frost,  Brig.-Gen. — Continued 
at  Camp  Jackson,  26;  sur- 
renders, 27 

Gaines's  Mill,  battle,  224-25 

Galveston  (Texas),  occupied 
by  Farragut,  114;  again  in 
Confederate  hands,  115,  310 

Gardner,  Colonel,  Anderson 
replaces  at  Charleston,  2 

Garfield,  Colonel  J.  A.,  at 
Prestonburg,  125 

Garnett,  General  R.  S.,  killed, 
30 

Georgia,  secedes,  56;  beginning 
of  war  in,  93;  effective  for 
South  (1864),  335;  Sherman 
threatens,  336,  356-57; scene 
of  action,  365,  366-71;  Sher- 
man's March  to  the  Sea, 
372-76 

Getty,  General  G.  W.,  at  Cedar 
Creek,  363 

Gettysburg  campaign,  287  et 
seq.;  Lee's  defeat,  278;  cav- 
alry combat,  288;  govern- 
ment interference,  288-89; 
Meade  succeeds  Hooker,  291, 
292;  battle,  293-305;  Little 
Round  Top,  295;  impor- 
tance of  location,  296;  first 
day,  297-99;  second  day, 
299-300;  third  day,  300-05; 
Pickett's  Charge,  301-04; 
Lee's  retreat,  305 

Gilman,  Lieutenant,  in  Flor- 
ida, 3;  at  Fort  Pickens, 
5 

Gloucester  Point  (Virginia), 
Federals  fail  to  take  fort  at, 
200 

Goldsboro  (North  Carolina), 
Sherman  at,  383 

Governor  Moore,  Confederate 
vessel,  101 

Grafton  (West  Virginia),  Fed- 
eral line  at,  30 

Grand  Gulf  (Mississippi), 
Grant's  objective,  270 


Granger,  General  Gordon,  at 
Fort  Morgan,  323 

Grant,  Jesse,  father  of  General 
Grant,  130 

Grant,  Matthew,  ancestor  of 
General  Grant,  129 

Grant,  Noah,  great-grand-fa- 
ther of  General  Grant,  130 

Grant,  Solomon,  great-grand- 
uncle  of  General  Grant,  130 

Grant,  General  U.  S.,  76,  83, 
94,  109,  123,  181,  370;  and 
Lyon,  26;  at  Belmont 
(Missouri),  92,  121;  age, 
95;  River  war  of  1863,  115, 
260  et  seq.;  commands  at 
Cairo,  119,  121,  122;  at  Fort 
Henry,  128;  ancestors,  129- 
130;  early  life,  130-31;  ap- 
pearance, 132-33;  Fort  Don- 
elson,  135-41;  as  a  soldier, 
140-41;  "unconditional  sur- 
render," 140,  141;  desire  to 
push  South,  142;  ordered 
arrested  for  insubordination, 
142-43;  at  Pittsburg  Land- 
ing, 143,  147-48;  Shiloh, 
146,  147-54;  made  second  in 
command,  155;  relations 
with  Halleck,  155;  as  a 
leader,  155-56;  commands 
Army  of  the  Tennessee,  160, 
260;  Vicksburg  as  objective, 
160,  163,  263;  holds  Mem- 
phis-Corinth rails,  161; 
"most  anxious  period  of  the 
war,"  162-63;  Holly  Springs, 
163-64;  returns  to  Memphis, 
164;  on  the  Mississippi,  167; 
and  Lincoln,  168,  185-86, 
332,  360;  lies  about,  ,  177; 
given  chief  command,  185- 
186;  refuses  Presidential  can- 
didacy (1864),  187-88;  his 
generals,  261-62;  and  Banks, 
261,  273;  on  action  of  Navy 
in  Vicksburg  campaign,  262; 
quoted,  264;  naval  oper- 
ations  help,    266-67;   lands 


INDEX 


409 


Grant,  General — Continued 
army  at  Bruinsburg,  267, 
268;  supplies  for  army,  269, 
270-71;  Port  Gibson,  270; 
at  Grand  Gulf.  270;  victo- 
ries in  rear  of  Vicksburg,  27 1 ; 
siege  of  Vicksburg,  271-78; 
surrender  of  Vicksburg, 
277-78;  given  supreme  com- 
mand, 280;  Chattanooga, 
281,  284,  285;  and  Red 
River  Expedition,  317-18, 
330;  campaign  (1864),  327 
et  seq.;  Lieutenant-General, 
327;  midwinter  tour,  327- 
328;  summoned  to  Washing- 
ton, 328;  and  Stanton,  330- 
331,  332,  333,  362-63;  and 
Swinton,  333-34;  force  in 
Virginia,  334;  headquarters 
at  Culpeper  Court  House, 
336;  plana  advance,  338; 
Confederate  cavalry  raids 
against,  339;  elements  of 
victory,  340-41;  Wilderness, 
341-44;  Spotsylvania,  343- 
344;  Sheridan's  raid,  344-46; 
Sherman's  advance,  344-45, 
346-48;  Cold  Harbor,  349, 
350-54;  losses,  365;  Peters- 
burg, 359-60,  384,  386; 
approves  Sherman's  plans, 
371;  Nashville,  378;  closes  in 
on  Lee,  381,  383,  385,  386; 
at  meeting  at  City  Point 
(Virginia),  384;  Lincoln  ap- 
proves terms  to  Lee,  385; 
quoted,  386;  letter  to  Lee, 
388;  surrender  of  Lee,  389- 
892 ;  terms  of  Lee's  surrender, 
390-91;  on  assassination  of 
Lincoln,  393 

Greeley,  Horace,  defection  of, 
176 

Grigsby,  Colonel,  Jackson  and, 
206 

Hagerstown  (Maryland), 

Longstreet  at,  245 


Halleck,  General  H.  W.,  Fed- 
eral commander  in  West, 
121,  122,  142;  as  a  general, 
122-23;  Grant  and,  142, 
146,  149,  155,  360,  363; 
after  Shiloh,  155;  at  Cor- 
inth, 157;  General-in-Chief, 
159;  military  adviser  at 
Washington,  184,  228;  repri- 
mands Banks,  273;  censures 
Meade,  305;  orders  Red 
River  Expedition,  318 

Hampton  Roads,  Monitor  and 
Merrimac  in,  85,  197 

Hancock,  General  W.  S.,  342; 
at  Gettysburg,  295,  297; 
at  Cold  Harbor,  351 

Hanover  Court  House  (Vir- 
ginia), Cooke  pursues  Stuart 
from,  219 

Hardee,  General  W.  J.,  evacu- 
ates Savannah,  376 

Harney,  General  W.  S.,  com- 
mands Department  of  the 
West,  27 

Harper's  Ferry,  Federal  forces 
abandon,  17,  20-21;  Jack- 
son at,  19,  21-22,  23-24; 
strategic  point,  20,  23;  Vir- 
ginia militia  at,  21;  John- 
ston takes  command  at,  25, 
35;  Union  forces  on  Poto- 
mac near,  35,  36,  37; 
Johnston  retires  from,  37; 
Banks  at,  199;  troops  gath- 
er at,  213;  Jackson  and, 
214,  245 

Harriet  Lane.  U.  S.  S.,  114 

Harris,  Colonel,  Confederate 
leader,  132 

Harrisburg  (Pennsylvania), 
Banks  at,  204,  207 

Harrison's  Landing  (Virginia), 
in  Seven  Days'  battle,  223, 
225;  McClellan  moves  from, 
228,  229 

Hartford,  Federal  man-of-war, 
at  Ship  Island,  94;  New 
Orleans    forts,     102-03;    in 


410 


INDEX 


Hartford — Continued 

Vicksburg    campaign,     265; 
Mobile  Bay,  321,  322,  323 

Haskins,  Major,  at  Baton 
Rouge,  6,  7 

Hatteras,  Alabama  sinks,  69, 
115 

Hatteras  Island,  taken,  85,  92- 
93 

Haxall's  Landing  (Virginia), 
Sheridan  at,  345 

Hayes,  R.  B.,  quoted,  364 

Hazen,  General  W.  B.,  takes 
Fort  McAllister,  375 

Helena  (Arkansas),  force  joins 
Grant,  163;  Confederate  at- 
tack repulsed,  278 

Henry,  Fort,  Johnston  at,  124; 
blocks  Federal  advance,  126; 
attack  on,  126-27;  sur- 
render, 127,  128-29;  Federal 
march  from,  136;  Grant 
ordered  to  remain  at,  142 

Hill,  General  A.  P.,  at  Beaver 
Dam  Creek,  223-24;  at 
Gaines's  Mill.  224;  Gettys- 
burg, 297,  302 

Hill,  General  D.  H.,  280 

Hilton  Head  (South  Carolina), 
fleet  action  off,  93 

Holly  Springs  (Mississippi), 
Grant  at,  164 

Hood,  General  J.  B.,  battle  of 
Atlanta,  358,  359,  367;  num- 
ber of  troops,  371;  Nash- 
ville, 376;  attacks  Schofield, 
377 

Hooker,  General  Joseph,  fail- 
ure in  Virginia,  185;  Second 
Bull  Run,  238;  supersedes 
Burnside,  251,  289-90;  dis- 
cipline, 252;  as  a  general, 
254;  on  deserters,  255;  joins 
Grant,  280;  at  Wauhatchie, 
281;  Lookout  Mountain,  282- 
285;  Chancellors  ville,  237; 
Washington  interferes  with, 
288;  Lincoln's  letter  to,  289- 
290;  resignation,  290-91 


"Hornets'  Nest,"  150,  152 

Howard,  General  O.  O., 
Gettysburg  campaign,  295, 
297;  at  Chancellorsville, 
257;  commands  Army  of  the 
Tennessee,  359 

Huger,  General  Benjamin, 
against  Butler,  35 

Hunter,  General  David,  and 
Washington  interference, 
331,  338-39;  Sigel  replaced 
by,  338,  350;  succeeded  by 
Sheridan,  339;  success  at 
Staunton,  355;  and  Early, 
356 

Hurlbut,  General  S.  A.,  at 
Shiloh,  152,  153 

Imboden,  General  J.  D.,  at 
Bull  Run,  49;  describes 
Jackson,  50;  Gettysburg, 
305 

Indiana,  Morgan's  Raid,  59, 
278-79 

Indians,  part  in  Civil  War,  60, 
166 

Ingraham,  Commodore  D.  N., 
attacks  blockade  at  Charles- 
ton, 308 

"Iron  Brigade,"  Meredith's, 
298 

Island  Number  Ten,  Confeder- 
ates hold,  142;  attack  on, 
143-45;  Pope's  operations, 
159 

Itasca,  Federal  gunboat,  99 

luka  (Mississippi),  battle,  162 

Jackson,  Governor  Claiborne, 
25,  27 

Jackson,  General  T.  J.,  94, 
272;  and  negroes,  19;  per- 
sonal characteristics,  19-20; 
at  Harper's  Ferry,  21-22,  23- 
24;  as  disciplinarian,  24,  206; 
Johnston  takes  command 
from,  25,  35;  commands 
First  Shenandoah  Brigade, 
25;     at     Martinsburg,     37; 


INDEX 


411 


Jackson,  General — Continued 
at  Falling  Waters,  38-39; 
guards  while  soldiers  sleep, 
45;  at  Bull  Run,  45,  48,  49, 
62-53,  54;  origin  of  nick- 
name "Stonewall,"  49;  Im- 
boden  describes,  50;  as  a  gen- 
eral, 76;  age,  95;  McClellan's 
failure  against,  159;  maneu- 
vering in  Virginia,  161;  as 
strategist,  182,  194-95,  216- 
217;campaigu  (1862-63),  193 
ct  seq.;  Lee  and,  194,  203; 
Kernstown,  198-99;  Banks 
designs  net  for,  200;  forces, 
204;  Valley  campaign,  205- 
217;  McDowell,  208-09;  rout 
of  Banks,  210-12;  summary 
of  fortnight's  work,  214-15; 
Port  Republic,  216,  217; 
pursuit  of,  215-16;  planned 
attack  on  McClellan,  221, 
223;  attends  Lee's  confer- 
ence, 222;  Seven  Days,  223- 
226 ;  again  pursued,  227 ; 
Cedar  Run,  228-29;  plans 
against  Pope,  230-31; 
marches  north,  231-32; 
slips  away,  232;  at  Manassas 
Junction,  234;  preparations 
for  battle,  235-36;  Second 
Bull  Run,  237-43;  in  the 
Valley,  248;  against  Hooker, 
254,  255,  256,  258;  wounded, 
258;  death,  259;  Grant 
marches  on,  271;  govern- 
ment interference  with,  332 

Jackson  (Mississippi),  Grant 
wins  at,  271 

Jackson,  Camp  (Missouri), 
Frost  establishes,  26;  Lyon 
takes,  26,  131 

Jackson,  Fort,  guards  New 
Orleans,  96 

James  Island,  Fort  Johnson  on, 
2 

Jefferson  City  (Missouri),  Con- 
federate recruiting  at,  27; 
Lyon  at,  28 


Jetersville  (Virginia),  Grant 
goes  to,  387 

Johnson,  General  Edward, 
commands  near  Staunton, 
208 

Johnson,  Fort,  Charleston, 
2,  13 

Johnston,  General  A.  S.,  com- 
mands in  West,  123,  124; 
Logan's  Cross  Roads,  126; 
Nashville,  141;  Pope  cuts 
line,  145;  plans  attack  on 
Grant,  146;  Shiloh.  148, 
149.  150;  death,  152 

Johnston,  General  J.  E.,  com- 
mands at  Richmond,  19;  at 
Harper's  Ferry,  25,  35;  Fed- 
eral problem  of  attack,  36; 
destroys  stores  at  Harper's 
Ferry,  37;  eludes  Patterson, 
44;  joins  Beauregard,  45- 
46;  Bull  Run,  48,  49;  im- 
mediate superior  of  Jackson, 
182;  Davis  and,  195,  367, 
881;  retires  to  Culpeper, 
197;  against  McClellan,  215; 
Seven  Pines,  218;  wounded, 
218;  Vicksburg,  219,  274; 
government  mistake  con- 
cerning, 332;  Dalton,  336, 
347;  Sherman  against,  346, 

347,  357-58,  382,  386;  Resa- 
ca,  347;  New  Hope  Church, 
348;  evacuates  Allatoona, 
348;  at  Kenesaw  Mountain, 

348,  357-58;  Benton  ville, 
382-83;  terms  of  surrender, 
394 

Kanawha  campaign,  SO;  see 
also  West  Virginia 

Kansas,  Southern  sympathy  in, 
56,  57 

Kearny,  General  Philip. 
Second  Bull  Run,  238 

Kearsarge,  U.  S.  S.,  and  Ala- 
bama, 69,  313-17 

Kenesaw  Mountain  (Georgia), 
Johnston    at,    348;    battle. 


412 


INDEX 


Kenesaw  Mountain — Cont'd 
357-58;     Sherman     watches 
Allatoona  engagement  from, 
369 

Kenly,  Colonel,  at  Front  Royal, 
211 

Kennon,  Confederate  naval 
officer,  101 

Kentucky,  opinions  divided  in, 
29;  neutral,  56;  Southern 
sympathy  in,  56;  Confeder- 
ates lose  hold  of  eastern,  125; 
Federals  conquer,  160; 
Bragg's  invasion  of,  161, 
162,  243;  Morgan's  raid, 
278,  357;  Grant's  army  in, 
336;  Hood's  objective,  370 

Kernstown  (Virginia),  battle, 
198-99,  204 

Keystone  State,  Confederate 
gunboats  attack,  309 

Kingston  (Georgia),  Johnston 
retires  to,  347 

Knoxville  (Tennessee),  Burn- 
side  occupies,  279;  Long- 
street  sent  against,  281; 
dependent  upon  Chat- 
tanooga, 281;  Bragg's  con- 
nection cut,  284;  Grant's 
inspection  of,  328 

Lacy,    chaplain    at    Jackson's 

headquarters,  259 
Lamb,  Colonel  commands  Fort 

Fisher,  324,  325 
Lancaster  (Ohio),  Sherman  at, 

8 
Lebanon    (Missouri),    General 

Curtis  at,  122 
Lebanon  Springs,  Jackson  at, 

209 
Lee,     Fitzhugh,    Stuart    and, 

229 
Lee,  General  R.  E.,  94,   182. 

1 86, 1 95, 379 ;  at  San  Antonio, 

8-9,   10;  military  career,   9; 

decision    for   South,    10-11, 

18-19;  resignation  from   U. 

S.     Army,     11;    commands 


Virginia  forces,  19;  Kana- 
wha campaign,  31,  33;  mili- 
tary adviser  at  Richmond, 
36;  prevision,  44,  147;  as  a 
leader,  75-76;  age,  95;  Mc- 
Clellan  against,  159,  215; 
maneuvering  in  Virginia, 
161;  made  Commander-in- 
Chief,  183,  219,  332,  381; 
in  1862-63,  193  et  seq.',  and 
Jackson,  194;  plans  Valley 
campaign,  203;  appointed  to 
command  in  eastern  Vir- 
ginia and  North  Carolina, 
219;  plan  against  McClellan, 
222-23;  Seven  Days,  223; 
McClellan  foils,  226;  sends 
Jackson  against  Pope,  228; 
entrains  Longstreet  for 
Gordonsville,  229;  as  strate- 
gist, 230-31;  divides  army, 
231;  Second  Bull  Run,  237- 
243;  and  Longstreet,  239-40, 
252,  253-54,  295;  invasion  of 
Maryland,  243-45;  again 
divides  army,  245;  at  Antie- 
tam,  245-46;  at  Culpeper, 
248;  Fredericksburg,  249; 
Burnside  tries  to  surprise, 
251;  Hooker  against,  253, 
254,  287;  quoted,  255-56; 
Chancellorsville,  253,  258; 
defeat  at  Gettysburg,  278; 
no  part  in  Chattanooga  strat- 
egy, 281;  plans  counter-attack 
in  Pennsylvania,  287-88, 291, 
292;  Brandy  Station,  288; 
position  before  Gettysburg, 
291,  293;  Gettysburg,  293 
et  seq.;  retreat,  305;  attempt 
to  bring  on  Third  Manassas, 
306;  on  importance  of  Wil- 
mington, 324;  at  Orange 
Court  House,  336;  Wilder- 
ness, 341,  344;  Spotsylvania, 
342-44;  illness,  348;  prepares 
for  Cold  Harbor,  349;  at 
Cold  Harbor,  350-52;  losses, 
353;  siege,  354;  losses,  354; 


INDEX 


413 


Lee,  General  R.  E. — Continued 
Petersburg,  356,  383-84;  in- 
soluble problem,  381;  leaves 
Petersburg,  386;  Sailor's 
Creek,  387-88;  asks  terms 
of  Grant,  388;  surrenders, 
388-89;  terms  of  surrender, 
390-91;  farewell  to  army, 
393 

Lexington  (Kentucky)  Grant 
inspects,  328;  Morgan's  raid, 
357 

Lexington  (Missouri),  Price 
takes,  29,  120 

Lick  Creek,  Grant's  forces  at, 
149.  150 

Lincoln,  Abraham,  Inaugural, 
11;  declares  blockade,  16; 
and  Lee,  18;  calls  for  Mis- 
souri's quota  of  volunteers, 
25;  general  call  for  volun- 
teers, 33;  and  civil  control, 
33,  182,  207,  228,  288,  329; 
on  evaders  of  service,  58-59; 
reSlection,  77,  364,  370,  379; 
and  Grant,  133,  327;  as  war 
statesman,  168  et  acq.;  birth, 
168;  education,  1G8-69;  ap- 
pearance, 169;  personal 
characteristics,  169-70;  ap- 
pointments, 170-71;  quoted 
175,  176;  and  Vallandigham 
176;  Emancipation,  178;  for- 
eign policy,  178-79;  Cabinet 
179-80;  as  Commander-in 
Chief,  180,  185;  and  Mc 
Clellan,  184-85,  188,  221 
stories,  189-90;  letter  to  a 
bereaved  mother,  190-91 
Second  Inaugural  quoted 
191-92;  military  orders 
195-96;  halts  McDowell 
199-200;  and  Hooker,  252 
289-90;  and  Stanton,  330 
cipher  letter  to  Grant,  332 
360;  and  Sherman,  362,  374 
376-77;  meets  Union  lead 
ers,  384,  385;  assassination 
393;  approves  terms  of  sur 


render,  394;  bibliography, 
399 

Little  Sorrel,  Jackson's  horse, 
21,  195 

Logan.  General  J.  A.,  261-62; 
replaces  McPherson  at  At- 
lanta, 358;  Ezra  Church,  359; 
Nashville,  378 

Logan's  Cross  Roads,  Confed- 
erates at,  124;  Thomas's 
victory  at,  125,  126 

Longstreet,  General  James,  en- 
trains for  Gordonsville.  229; 
Jackson's  march  against 
Pope,  232;  Second  Bull  Run, 
237;  obstructs  Lee's  plans, 
239-40;  at  Hagerstown.  245; 
leaves  Lee,  252,  253;  rein- 
forces Bragg,  279;  Wau- 
batchie,  281;  urges  help  for 
Vicksburg.  287;  Gettysburg. 
294,  295,  297.  299-300.  301; 
Wilderness,  341;  wounded, 
341 

Lookout  Mountain,  see  Chat- 
tanooga 

Louisiana,  Union  forces  in,  6; 
Sherman  in,  6-8;  secedes, 
8,  56 

Louisiana,  Confederate  iron- 
clad, 97,  102;  as  mine  ship, 
324 

Louisville  (Kentucky),  Bragg 
at,  162;  Grant  inspects, 
328 

Louisville,  at  Fort  Donelson, 
135 

Lovell,  General  Mansfield, 
evacuates  New  Orleans,  104 

Lyon.  General  Nathaniel,  com- 
mands at  St.  Louis.  25;  fight 
for  Missouri.  25-28.  57,  118. 
131  ;  Fremont  and.  119; 
Wilson's  Creek,  119-20; 
killed,  120 

McAllister,  Fort,  naval  conflict 
near,  309;  Hazen's  attack, 
375 


414 


INDEX 


McClellan,  General  G.  B.,  in 
West  Virginia,  29-30,  35; 
recalled  to  Washington,  30; 
bubble  reputation,  31-33; 
former  career,  31;  "Young 
Napoleon  of  the  West,"  32; 
newspaper  publicity,  32, 176; 
force  in  Virginia,  120,  196; 
telegram  to  Grant  delayed, 
142;  Federal  invasion  of  Vir- 
ginia under,  159,  194  et  seq.; 
dismissal,  173,  248-49; 
Lincoln  and,  184-85,  188, 
221;  Democratic  candidate 
for  President  (1864),  186; 
plan  of  campaign,  196-97; 
Peninsula  Campaign,  198- 
228;  at  Fortress  Monroe, 
200,  201;  base  at  White 
House,  201,  203,  222;  in 
Chickahominy  swamps,  204; 
government  interference 

with,  213;  Jackson  aids 
against,  215;  awaits  Mc- 
Dowell, 217;  number  of 
troops,  217;  exaggerates 
number  of  enemy,  218; 
Seven  Pines,  218;  Stuart's 
ride  around,  219-20,  221, 
246-47;  Lee  and,  222-23; 
changes  base  to  Harrison's 
Landing,  225;  Malvern 
Hill,  225-26;  plans  to  take 
Richmond,  226;  ordered  to 
Aquia,  228;  Pope  and,  235; 
discovers  Lee's  plans,  245; 
lets  opportunity  slip,  245; 
Antietam,  246;  superseded 
by  Burnside,  248;  popularity, 
248-49 

McClernand,  General  J.  B., 
Grant's  second-in-command, 
113;  fails  to  meet  Banks, 
114;  battle  on  own  account, 
136;  at  Fort  Donelson,  137, 
138,  139;  Shiloh,  153;  Arkan- 
sas Post,  164;  as  a  general, 
261,  270,  272;  breach  of  dis- 
cipline, 272-73 ;  dismissal,  273 


McCulloch,  General  Benjamin, 
at  Wilson's  Creek,  119; 
killed  at  Pea  Ridge,  143 

McDowell,  General  Irvin, 
assists  Scott,  33;  crosses 
Potomac,  34-35;  Bull  Run, 
36,  53;  President  reviews 
army  of,  39;  number  of 
troops,  40;  difficulties  en- 
countered, 40-41,  42; quoted, 
42;  wastage  in  forces,  46; 
people  lose  confidence  in, 
184;  kept  from  reinforcing 
McClellan,  199-200;  strike 
at  Richmond,  201;  ordered 
to  Valley,  213;  Jackson  and, 
214;  McClellan  awaits,  217, 
218 

McDowell  (Virginia),  battle, 
208-09,  216 

McGuire,  Dr.  Hunter,  230 

Mcintosh,  General  James, 
killed  at  Pea  Ridge,  143 

McMahon,  J.  P.,  at  Cold  Har- 
bor, 352 

McMahon,  General  Martin, 
quoted,  354 

McPherson,  General  J.  B., 
killed  at  Atlanta,  358 

Macon  (Georgia),  Southern 
cannon  made  at,  64 

Maffitt,  Commander  J.  N., 
commands  Florida,  115 

Magruder,  General  J.  B.,  and 
Butler,  35;  Yorktown,  223; 
holds  Richmond,  223 

Mallory,  S.  R.,  Confederate 
Secretary  of  Navy,  71 

Malvern  Hill  (Virginia), 
battle,  225,  226 

Manassas,  Johnston  at,  44; 
Jackson  at,  45,  234;  location, 
46-47;  Federal  base,  232, 
233;  base  destroyed,  234, 
235;  Battle  of  Second,  237, 
292;  see  aho  Bull  Run 

Manassas,  Federal  ram,  101 

Marshall,  Colonel  Charles, 
Lee's  aide-de-camp,  389 


INDEX 


415 


Marshall,  General  H.  M.,  with 
Johnston  in  Kentucky,  124, 
125 

Martha  Washington,  story  of 
Lincoln  on  board,  221 

Martinsburg  (West  Virginia), 
Jackson  marches  on,  37; 
Patterson  occupies,  39;  Con- 
federates reach,  213; Jackson 
destroys  Federal  stores  at, 
215 

Maryland,  border  slave  State, 
17;  Confederate  hope  for, 
24;  Southern  sympathy  in, 
56,  243-44;  sea-power  keeps 
for  Union,  85;  Jackson's  plan 
to  enter,  194;  Confederate 
invasion,  243-45;  Federals 
massed  in,  291 

Mason,  Fort,  Lee  from,  8 

Matamoras,  contraband  im- 
ported into,  307,  303,  310 

Matthews  Hill,  battle  of  Bull 
Run,  47,  48,  50 

Meade,  General  G.  G.,  quoted, 
178;  as  a  general,  185,  292; 
succeeds  Hooker  in  com- 
mand, 291,  292;  Gettysburg, 
295,  299,  300-01;  Lincoln's 
dissatisfaction  with,  305; 
Army  of  Potomac  under, 
334;  headed  for  Richmond, 
342;  Cold  Harbor,  351; 
Petersburg,  359 

Mechanics ville  (Virginia),  bat- 
tle, 223 

Memphis,  Confederate  rams 
lost  at,  70;  Confederate  fleet 
at,  97;  Grant  in  command 
at,  159;  Sherman's  army 
from,  163;  Grant  returns  to, 
164;  Grant  leaves,  260; 
Grant  considers  retirement 
on,  263 

Mercedita,  Confederate  gun- 
boats attack,  308-09 

Meredith,  Solomon,  "Iron 
Brigade"  at  Gettysburg, 
298 


Merrimac,  only  Confederate 
man-of-war,  70;  duel  with 
Monitor,  85-91,  197;  de- 
stroyed, 202 

Mesilla  (New  Mexico),  Baylor 
establishes  capital  at,  166 

Metacomet  against  Fort  Mor- 
gan, 322 

Mexican  War,  Grant  serves  in, 
131 

Mexico,  France  warned  from 
intervention  in,  329 

Middle  Creek  (Kentucky), 
Garfield  occupies  line  of,  125 

Mill  Springs  (Kentucky), 
Confederates  at,  124;  battle, 
125 

Milroy,  R.  H.,  in  Jackson's 
Valley  campaign,  208,  209; 
driven  from  Winchester,  291 

Mine  Run  (Virginia),  battle, 
306 

Minnesota,  Merrimac  attacks, 
89,  91 

Missionary  Ridge,  see  Chat- 
tanooga 

Mississippi,  secedes,  56;  con- 
flicting authorities  balk 
navy,  69-70 

Mississippi,  Confederate  ship, 
100,  102;  burnt  at  New 
Orleans,  97 

Mississippi  River,  Union 
power  on,  68;  Federal  prob- 
lem, 105;  River  War  (1862), 
116  et  scq.;  River  War 
(1863),  260  et  seq.;  Federals 
hold,  310-11,  370 

Missouri,  saved  for  Union,  25- 
29,  56-57;  Southern  sym- 
pathy in,  56;  River  campaign 
(1862),  121-22;  Curtis  in, 
122,  143 

Missouri  River,  made  Federal 
line  of  communication,  28- 
29;  last  Confederate  foot- 
hold on,  120 

Mitchel,  General  O.  M.,  raid, 
161 


416 


INDEX 


Mobile,  fleet  drawn  from,  107; 
in  Southern  hands,  310,  335- 
336;  Farragut  against,  317, 
337;  Fort  Morgan,  320-23; 
army  sent  against,  327;  Sher- 
man desires  attack  on,  347; 
Grant's  plan  to  help  Farra- 
gut, 349;  taken.  188,319,361, 
364 

Monitor,  duel  with  Merrimac, 
85-91,  197;  Lincoln  on  plans 
for.  189 

Monocacy  River,  Wallace  de- 
lays Early  at,  356 

Monroe,  Fortress,  Federal 
forces  at,  35,  36,  85,  86; 
Monitor  at,  88;  McClellan's 
plan  for  position  at,  197, 
198;  McClellan  at,  200,  229; 
McClellan  leaves,  201 

Montauk,  Union  monitor.  309 

Montgomery  (Alabama),  pro- 
visional Confederate  Con- 
gress, 11 

Morgan,  J.  H.,  Raid,  59,  278- 
279;  surrender.  279;  Ken- 
tucky raid,  357 

Morgan,  Fort  Farragut  against, 
320-23 

Mosby,  J.  S.,  Confederate 
cavalry  leader,  339 

Moultrie,  Fort,  1-2,  3,  13 

Mount  Pleasant  battery,  13 

"Mud  March,"  Burnside's, 
251,  252,  255,  263-64;  Mulli- 
gan, Colonel  James,  at  Lex- 
ington (Missouri).  120 

Murfreesboro  (Tennessee), 

Buell  at,  162 

Nashville.  Buell  reinforces 
Grant  from,  146;  Buell  de- 
fends. 162;  Grant's  head- 
quarters. 327;  Thomas  sent 
from.  370;  Thomas  faces 
Hood  at,  376;  battle.  377- 
378 

Nashville,  Confederate  priva- 
teer, 309 

Navy,  Confederate,  sea-power 


of  South.  68-71;  poor  ad- 
ministration, 69-70;  see  also 
Navy,  United  States 

Navy,  United  States,  stands 
by  Union,  68;  keeps  com- 
mand of  sea,  68;  size  (1861), 
71;  Welles's  report  on,  72; 
Fox  as  Assistant  Secretary 
of  Navy,  72-73;  Promotion 
Board.  73;  training,  73-74; 
growth,  74;  Naval  War 
(1862),  84  et  seq.;  fivefold 
duty  of,  HI;  Farragut  and, 
307  et  seq.;  blockade-runners 
complicate  task  of.  307;  part 
in  River  War  (1862).  128. 
133.  134-33,  144-45 

Navy  Act,  12 

Negroes,  fidelity  to  South,  60; 
North  uses  as  troops,  60, 
79;  New  York  draft  riots, 
174;  see  also  Emancipation, 
slavery 

Nelson,  William,  at  Shiloh, 
149,  153 

New  Hope  Church  (Georgia), 
fighting  near,  348 

New  Madrid  (Missouri),  Pope 
at,  144;  Carondelet  arrives  at, 
145 

New  Mexico,  as  base  of  Cali- 
fornia invasion,  165;  Baylor 
proclaims  himself  Governor, 
165-66;  Sibley  in,  166 

New  Orleans,  Confederate 
rams  lost  at,  70;  attack 
conceived,  93;  strategic  im- 
portance, 94;  joint  expedi- 
tion necessary,  94;  Farragut 
commands  enterprise,  94; 
Welles's  orders,  94,  96;  Far- 
ragut's  plan,  96-97,  98; 
Mississippi  burned  at,  97; 
preparations,  97-98;  passing 
of  forts,  97-103;  taken,  104- 
105,  156,201;  Farragut  at, 
110,  113,  115.  317;  Baton 
Rouge  garrison  withdrawn 
to,  110 


INDEX 


417 


New  York,  Monitor  launched, 
87;  draft  riot,  174 

Newbern  (North  Carolina), 
expedition  against,  93;  Rich- 
mond menaced  from,  252- 
253;  attempt  against,  318; 
in  Union  hands,  383;  meet- 
ing of  Union  leaders  at, 
384 

Norfolk  Navy  Yard,  Federal 
abandonment  of,  17,  86 

North,  peace  parties,  58;  see 
also  Pacifists;  population 
(1861),  60-61;  resources,  62- 
63,  64;  transport  facilities, 
64-65;  sea-power,  64,  66-68, 
82,  85,  310;  see  also  Navy, 
United  States;  commerce, 
66;  total  forces,  79-80,  83; 
conscription,  80,  81;  conduct 
of  soldiers,  227-28;  Lee's 
invasion,  295;  conditions  in 
1864,  361 

North  Carolina,  blockade,  16; 
defeat  at  Hatteras  Island, 
92-93;  loses  defenses,  93; 
see  also  Carolinas 

Ohio,  Morgan's  Raid,  59,  278, 
279;       Vallandigham      case, 
175-76 
Olustee  (Fla.),  victory  of,  380 
Oneida,  Confederate  ship,  100 
Opequan     Creek       (Virginia), 
Sheridan's   victory   at,    362, 
363,  364 
Orange     Court     House     (Vir- 
ginia), Lee  at,  336 
Ord,  General  E.  O.  C,  Read  on 
staff  of,  387 

Pacifists,  in  North,  58,  80, 
172,  173,  174;  Peace  party 
encouraged  by  Cold  Harbor, 
353 

Paducah  (Kentucky),  Grant 
forestalls  enemy  at,  121; 
Grant's  position  at,  122 

Pamlico  Sound   (North    Caro- 

27 


lina),  joint  expedition 
against,  93 

Patterson,  General  Robert, 
commands  on  Potomac,  35, 
37;  and  plans  for  Bull  Run, 
36;  Falling  Waters,  38-39; 
occupies  Martinsburg,  39; 
advance,  39;  and  Johnston, 
44 

Pea  Ridge  (Arkansas),  battle, 
143 

Pemberton,  General  J.  C, 
escapes  Federal  trap,  163, 
260;  Chickasaw  Bluffs,  164, 
260;  commander  at  Vicks- 
burg,  274,  275;  plans  escape, 
276;  surrender,  277 

Pensacola  (Florida),  beginning 
of  war,  3-5;  evacuation,  6; 
South  uses  garrison  to  rein- 
force Virginia,  93;  Farragut 
directs  Gulf  blockade  from, 
111 

Pensacola,  Confederate  ship, 
100,  102 

Peninsula  Campaign,  McClel- 
lan  plans,  196-97;  campaign, 
198-204 

Pendleton,  Major  A.  S.,  mem- 
ber of  Jackson's  staff,  259 

Perryville  (Kentucky),  battle, 
162 

Petersburg  (Virginia),  strate- 
gic rail  gap  at,  65-66;  win- 
ter quarters,  334;  Butler  fails 
to  take,  340;  Grant  at,  356, 
383,  384;  Lee  leaves,  386 

Philippi  (West  Virginia),  bat- 
tle, 30,  31 

Pickens,  Fort,  4,  5 

Pickett,  G.  E.,  charge  at 
Gettysburg,  301-04 

Pillow,  General  G.  J.,  at  Fort 
Donelson,  136,  137;  escape, 
139 

Pillow,  Fort,  Federal  vessels 
rammed  at,  158 

Pinckney,  Castle,  see  Castle 
Pinckney 


418 


INDEX 


Pinola,  Federal  gunboat,  99 

Pipe  Creek,  Meade's  army  at, 
296 

Pittsburg  Landing,  see  Shiloh 

Pittsburgh,  Federal  ironclad 
at  Fort  Donelson,  135;  at 
Island  Number  Ten,  145 

Pleasant  Hill,  battle,  330 

Pleasonton,  General  A., 
cavalry  leader,  305 

Point  Pleasant  (Ohio),  Grant 
born  at,  130 

Pope,  General  John,  Grant 
declines  patronage  of,  131; 
Island  Number  Ten,  144, 
145;  reinforces  Halleck  at 
Pittsburg  Landing,  155; 
transfer  to  Virginia,  159, 
226;  quoted,  226-27;  within 
reach  of  Jackson  and  Lee, 
229;  retires  safely,  230; 
Jackson  captures  dispatches 
of,  230;  Lee  divides  army 
against,  231;  Jackson's  plan 
against,  232;  Jackson  march- 
es around,  232-34;  reinforce- 
ment, 234;  Jackson  eludes, 
235;  Second  Bull  Run,  237, 
238.  239,  240,  242,  243 

Port  Gibson  (Mississippi),  270 

Port  Hudson  (Louisiana),  110, 
117,  156,  261,265,  278,  310 

Port  Republic  (Virginia),  216, 
217 

Port  Royal  (South  Carolina), 
Confederate  defeat,  92; 
Grant  moves  base  to,  350 

Porter,  Admiral  D.  D.,  con- 
ceives idea  of  attack  on  New 
Orleans,  93;  on  Mississippi, 
108,  167;  succeeds  Davis, 
110;  capture  of  Arkansas 
Post,  164;  Vicksburg  cam- 
paign, 261,  262,  266,  267, 
274;  Mississippi  command, 
278;  attacks  Fort  Fisher, 
324,  325;  on  Red  River,  330; 
at  City  Point  conference, 
384,  385 


Porter,  FitzJohn,  position, 
222;  Beaver  Dam  Creek, 
323;  Gaines's  Mill,  224; 
Second  Bull  Run,  239; 
Pope's  order,  239 

Porter,  J.  L.,  Naval  Con- 
structor to  Confederate 
States,  86 

Porter,  Commander  W.  D., 
at  Fort  Henry,  127 

Potter,  Captain  R.  M.,  on 
Lee's  decision,  10 

Powell,  Fort,  320 

Powhatan,  U.  S.  S.,  Porter 
commands,  93 

Prentiss,  General  B.  M.,  at 
Shiloh,  149,  151 

Press,  perverts  public  opinion, 
176-77;  no  government  cen- 
sorship, 333 

Prestonburg,  Garfield  defeats 
Marshall  near,  125 

Price,  Sterling,  becomes  Con- 
federate general,  27;  takes 
Lexington  (Missouri),  120; 
Grant  prevents  reinforce- 
ments for,  121;  attacks  Cur- 
tis in  Missouri,  143;  against 
Grant,  161;  defeated  at 
luka,  162-63 

Privateers,  16,  68 

Profiteers,  61 

Pulaski,  Fort,  93,  372 

Quaker  City,  Confederate  gun- 
boats attack,  309 

Rations,      before      Vicksburg, 

269-70;  Grant  supplies  Lee's 

army,  392 
Rawlins,   J.   A.,   Grant's  chief 

staff  officer,  135 
Raymond  (Mississippi),  battle, 

271 
Read,    Colonel    Theodore,    at 

Sailor's  Creek,  387 
Red  River  Expedition  (1864), 

318,  329,  337,  347,  349 


INDEX 


419 


Reno,  General  L.  J.,  Second 
Bull  Run,  238 

Renshaw,  Commander,  in 
charge  of  blockade,  114 

Resaca  (Georgia),  battle,  347 

Reynolds,  General  J.  F., 
Second  Bull  Run,  237,  238; 
Gettysburg,  295,  298;  killed, 
297 

Rhind,  Commander,  fires 
mine-ship  Louisiana,  324 

Rich  Mountain  (Virginia), 
battle,  30,  31-32 

Richmond,  plan  to  raid  Har- 
per's Ferry  arranged  at,  20; 
Federal  objective,  34,  35, 
200,  204,  336,  342;  Tredegar 
Iron  Works,  64;  Grant  and 
Lee  at  grips  around,  186; 
McClellan  threatens,  201, 
203,  204,  210,  217,  223;  plan 
to  evacuate,  202;  change  of 
plan,  202;  Jackson  starts  for, 
207;  Magruder  to  hold,  223; 
saved,  243;  Sheridan's  raid, 
344,  345-46;  Grant  marches 
toward,  350;  consternation 
after  Cold  Harbor,  355; 
Army  of  the  James  against, 
356 

Richmond,  Federal  ship,  102 

"River  Defense  Fleet,"  70, 
97 

River  War  (1862),  116  et  seq.; 
(1863),  260  et  seq.,  327 

Roanoke  Island  captured,  93 

"Rock  of  Chickamauga,"  nick- 
name for  General  Thomas, 
280,  370 

Rodgers,  Commander  John, 
and  first  flotilla  on  Missis- 
sippi, 118 

Roe,  Commander  of  the  Sas- 
sacus,  319 

Rosecrans,  General  W.  S.,  suc- 
ceeds McClellan,  30;  Army 
of  Mississippi  under,  160; 
holds  Memphis-Corinth  rails, 
161;     replaces     Buell,     162; 


victory  at  Corinth,  163;  com- 
mands Army  of  Cumberland, 
164;  Stone's  River,  164-65 
maneuvers  Bragg  south,  279 
Thomas  supersedes,  280 
Confederate  plan  to  crush, 
287;  Chattanooga,  305 

Sabine  Cross  Roads  (Louisi- 
ana), Banks's  defeat  at,  330 

Sabine  Pass  (Texas),  in  Con- 
federate hands,  115,  310 

Sable  Island,  Butler's  troops 
at,  104 

Sailor's  Creek  (Virginia),  Lee's 
defeat  at,  387 

St.  Louis,  Haskins  goes  to,  6; 
Lyon  commands  at,  25,  28; 
Lyon  marches  prisoners 
through,  27;  Harney  makes 
peace,  27;  conference,  27-28; 
Fremont's  headquarters,  118; 
Fremont  fortifies,  119;  Hal- 
leck's  headquarters,  121 

St.  Louis,  Federal  gunboat, 
135 

St.  Philip,  Fort,  96,  100,  104 

Salem  Church  (Virginia), 
Jackson  reaches,  232 

San  Antonio  (Texas),  surren- 
der to  State,  8-9;  Lee  at,  9- 
10;  Sibley's  retreat,  166 

San  Carlos,  Fort,  4 

Santa  Rosa  Island,  Slemmer 
defends,  4 

Sas.<iacus,  fight  with  Albemarle, 
319 

Savannah  (Georgia),  South 
holds,  253;  Sherman  plans 
march  to,  372;  Sherman 
reaches,  375;  Hardee  evacu- 
ates, 376 

Savannah  (Tennessee),  in 
Shiloh  campaign,  147,  148 

Schofield,  General  John,  Nash- 
ville campaign,  377 

Scott,  General  Winfield,  Gen- 
eral-in-Chief, orders  to  Slem- 
mer, 4;  and  Lee,  9,  18;  mili- 


420 


INDEX 


Scott,  General — Continued 
tary  adviser  at  Washington, 
S3,  36;  civilian  interference 
with,  33,  37;  Grant's  admir- 
ation for,  131;  prevision, 
147;  "Anaconda  policy, "  184 

Seddon,  J.  A.,  Confederate 
Secretary  of  War,  252 

Sedgwick,  General  John,  Vir- 
ginia campaign,  256 

Selma  (Alabama),  Southern 
cannon  made  at,  64 

Seminary  Ridge,  Lee's  head- 
quarters, 296 

Semmes,  Captain  Raphael  of 
Alabama,  311,  315,  316 

Seven  Days'  Battle,  223-26; 
balloon  used  in,  63 

Seven  Pines  (Virginia),  battle, 
218 

Seward,  W.  H.,  Secretary  of 
State,  179;  on  McClellan, 
188 

Sharpsburg,  see  Antietam 

Shetiandoak,  Confederate  raid- 
er, 69,  311,  326.  381 

Shenandoah  Brigade,  First, 
Jackson  in  command  of, 
25 

Shenandoah  Valley,  Johnston 
in,  36;  Sheridan's  raid,  189; 
Kernstown,  198-99;  posi- 
tions (April,  1862),  200; 
forces,  200,  204;  Jackson's 
maneuvers,  205-07;  Mc- 
Dowell, 208-09,  216;  Front 
Royal,  210-12;  Winchester, 
212;  pursuit  of  Banks,  212- 
213;  summary  of  Jackson's 
accomplishment  in,  214-15; 
pursuit  of  Jackson,  215-16; 
Cross  Keys,  216;  Port  Re- 
public, 216;  Jackson's  strat- 
egy, 216-17;  Ewell  in,  291; 
Stanton's  interference,  331- 
333;  Sigel  in,  337;  Hunter's 
retreat,  356;  Early  in,  356, 
362;  Sheridan  in,  362;  Ope- 
quan    Creek,    362;    "Sheri- 


dan's Ride,"  363-64;  Cedar 
Creek,  363-64;  Federal  vic- 
tory, 364 

Sheridan,  General  P.  H.,  raid 
helps  Lincoln's  reelection, 
189;  Chattanooga,  285; 
Stanton  falsifies  Grant's  or- 
der to,  332-33;  as  a  general, 
337-38;  Grant  and,  339, 
840,  348;  Todd's  Tavern, 
342;  Richmond  raid,  844, 
345-46;  Cold  Harbor,  350, 
351;  raid,  355;  Trevilian, 
355;  Opequan  Creek,  362; 
"Sheridan's  Ride,"  363-64; 
in  Washington,  362;  later 
operations,  384;  Five  Forks, 
386 

Sherman,  General  W.  T.,  col- 
onel in  Louisiana  State  Mili- 
tary Academy,  6-8;  leaves 
Louisiana,  8;  and  Lyon,  26; 
assists  Scott,  33;  account  of 
McDowells  march,  42;  as 
a  leader,  76,  94,  261,  338; 
Port  Royal  expedition,  93; 
age,  95;  attempt  to  take 
Vicksburg,  114;  Kentucky 
command,  120;  reported  in- 
sane, 121,  177;  diffident 
about  rise,  131;  Shiloh,  149, 
150,  152,  153;  joins  Grant, 
163;  Chickasaw  BIufiFs,  164, 
260;  and  Lincoln,  189; 
Vicksburg  campaign,  267; 
commands  Army  of  Tennes- 
see, 280;  Chattanooga,  281, 
282,  283,  285;  Red  River 
Expedition  spoils  stragegy 
of,  318,  347;  and  Stan- 
ton, 330;  on  relative  forces 
in  South,  334;  threatens 
Georgia,  336;  Dalton,  336, 
347;  fitness  for  command, 
338;  advance,  345,  346-47; 
Resaca,  347;  New  Hope 
Church,  348;  at  Allatoona, 
348;  at  Kenesaw,  348,  357; 
maneuvers    Johnston,    357- 


INDEX 


421 


Sherman,  General — Continued 
358;  battle  of  Atlanta,  358- 
359;  asks  reinforcements, 360; 
announces  fall  of  Atlanta, 
361;  Lincoln's  reply  to,  362; 
campaign  (1864),  366  et  seq.; 
quoted,  366;  at  Atlanta, 
366-67;  Hood's  attempt  on 
AUatoona,  369-70;  pre- 
ponderance of  force,  370; 
March  to  the  Sea,  372-76; 
presents  Savannah  to  Lin- 
coln, 376-77;  march  through 
Carolinas,  381-83;  confer- 
ence at  City  Point  (Virginia), 
384-85;  terms  of  surrender 
to  Johnston,  386,  394;  on 
Lincoln,  393-94 

Shields,  General  James,  Kerns- 
town,  198,  199;  at  Catlett's 
Station,  204;  Port  Republic, 
216 

Shiloh,  Grant's  army  assem- 
bles near,  143,  146;  Confeder- 
rate  preparations,  146-47; 
Grant's  position  and  force, 
147-49;  battle,  149-55; 
losses,  154;  outcome,  154; 
result,  154-55 

Shine,  Elizabeth,  mother  of 
Farragut,  95 

Ship  Island,  taken,  92;  Far- 
ragut at,  94,  96 

Sibley,  General  H.  H.,  in  New 
Mexico,  166 

Sickles,     General     D.     E.,     at 
_  Gettysburg,  294 

Sigel,  General  Franz,  Wilson's 
Creek,  120;  Second  Bull 
Run,  237;  command  in  Shen- 
andoah Valley,  337;  Hunter 
replaces,  350 

Simpson,  Grant's  mother's 
name,  129 

Slavery,  Lee  and,  19;  see  also 
Emancipation,  Negroes 

Slemmer,  Lieutenant,  com- 
mand at  Pensacola,  3;  de- 
fends Fort  Pickens,  4-5 


Smith,  General  A.  J.,  at  Tu- 
pelo, 357 

Smith.  Captain  C.  F.,  Grant's 
admiration  for,  131;  as  a 
leader,  135-36;  Fort  Donel- 
son,  138,  139;  ordered  by 
Halleck  to  command  expedi- 
tion, 142;  Shiloh,  152 

Smith,  General  G.  W.,  and 
Jackson's  plan,  194,  195 

Smith,  Giles,  Chattanooga, 
282 

Smith,  General  Kirby,  Bull 
Run,  53 

Smith,  William,  quartermaster 
on  Kearsarge,  316 

Sons  of  Liberty,  59 

South,  seceding  States  of,  56; 
war  party  in,  57;  population 
(1861),  60-61;  resources,  62- 
64;  transportation,  64-66; 
sea-power,  66-68;  see  also 
Navy,  Confederate;  reason 
for  fighting,  75;  advantages, 
75-77;  raiders,  311;  situation 
(1864),  335;  losses  (1864), 
367;  cause  lost,  379;  number 
of  troops,  380 

South  Carolina,  secedes,  1; 
defeat  at  Port  Royal,  92; 
see  also  Carolinas,  Charles- 
ton 

South  Mountain,  Stuart  at,  245 

Spotsylvania  (Virginia),  battle, 
342-43 

Stanton,  E.  M.,  Secretary  of 
War,  179;  and  Lincoln,  179; 
military  interference,  181, 
207,  290,  291,  338;  and  Lee, 
132;  Cameron  succeeded  by, 
195;  Banks  and,  211;  orders 
McClellan  to  Aquia,  228; 
and  Hooker,  252,  290;  for- 
bids use  of  cipher,  330-31; 
and  Grant's  orders,  332- 
333,  363 

Star  of  the  West,  merchant 
vessel  fired  on  at  Charleston, 
3,  4 


422 


INDEX 


Staunton  (Virginia),  Jackson 
at,  208;  Hunter's  success  at, 
355 

Steinwehr,  General  Adolph, 
atrocities  under,  227 

Stone's  River  (Tennessee), 
battle,  165 

Strasburg  (Virginia),  Banks's 
retreat  from,  212 

Stringham,  Flag-Officer,  ex- 
pedition against  Hatteras 
forts,  85 

Stuart,  J.  E.  B.,  255;  Confeder- 
ate cavalry  leader,  Martins- 
burg,  37-38;  Bull  Run,  44, 
45,  51;  raid  around  Mc- 
Clellan,  219-21;  against 
Pope,  229-30;  at  South 
Mountain,  245;  second  raid 
around  McClellan,  246-47; 
and  Lee's  retreat,  305;  age, 
338;  Sheridan  encounters, 
342;  Yellow  Tavern,  345; 
killed,  345 

Sturgis,  defeat  at  Brice's  Cross 
Roads,  357 

Suffolk  (Virginia),  menace  to 
Richmond  from,  252,  253 

Sumter,  Fort,  location,  2,  13; 
Anderson  goes  to,  3;  fall  of, 
12-16,  117 

Sumter,  Confederate  raider,  69 

Supply,  vessel  at  Fort  Pickens, 
4 

Swift  Run  Gap  (Virginia), 
Jackson  at,  200,  207 

Swinton,  William,  war  corre- 
spondent, 333-34 

Sykes,  General  George,  suc- 
ceeds Meade,  292 

Taylor,  Captain  Jesse,  de- 
stroys Confederate  reports  at 
Fort  Henry,  128 

Tecumseh,  sunk  in  Mobile 
Bay,  321 

Tennessee,  mountain  folk 
Unionist,  56,  57;  secedes, 
56 


Tennessee,  Confederate  ram, 
320,  321,  323 

Terry,  General  A.  H.,  at  Fort 
Fisher,  325 

Texas,  State  militia  seize  army 
posts,  6;  General  Twiggs 
surrenders  posts,  8-9,  65; 
secedes,  56;  contraband  en- 
ters, 308;  Red  River  Expedi- 
tion, 318;  last  shots  fired  in, 
380 

Thomas,  General  G.  H.,  Mill 
Springs,  125;  "Rock  of 
Chickamauga,"  280,  370; 
Chattanooga,  282,  283,  284, 
285;  Nashville  campaign, 
370,  376,  377-78 

Thoroughfare  Gap  (Virginia), 
Jackson's  expedition,  231, 
232,  233 

Tilghman,  General  Lloyd,  sur- 
renders Fort  Henry,  128 

Tod,  Judge,  Jesse  Grant  in 
home  of,  130 

Todd's  Tavern  (Virginia), 
battle,  342 

Transportation,  64-66;  means 
of  communication  in  Vir- 
ginia campaign,  35-36 

Traveler,  Lee's  horse.  328,  392, 
393 

Tredegar  Iron  Works,  64 

Trevilian  (Virginia),  Sheridan 
at,  355 

Tunstall's  Station  (Virginia), 
Stuart's  raid,  220 

Tupelo  (Mississippi),  Forrest 
defeated  at,  357 

Twiggs,  General  D.  E.,  sur- 
renders Texas  garrisons,  8, 
9,  165 

Undine,    gunboat   taken    with 

cavalry,  368 
Union    Mills    (Virginia),    ford 

defended,  46 
United       States,       population 

(1861),  60-61;  see  a/50  North, 

South 


INDEX 


423 


Vallandigham  case,  175-76 

Valley  Campaign,  Jackson's; 
see  Shenandoah  Valley 

Valverde  (New  Mexico),  Can- 
by's  defeat  at,  166 

Van  Dorn,  General  Earl,  Con- 
federate commander  of 
trans-Mississippitroops,  124; 
Pea  Ridge,  143 ;  reinforces 
Beauregard,  146, 157;  tries  to 
reconquer  Memphis-Corinth 
rails,  161;  replaced  by  Pem- 
berton,  163;  at  Holly  Springs, 
163-64 

Varuna,  Governor  Moore,  de- 
stroys, 101 

Vicksburg,  Farragut's  expedi- 
tion, 105-06,  107;  impor- 
tance of  position,  110;  Sher- 
man's attempt,  114,  260; 
see  also  Chickasaw  Bluffs; 
Grant's  operations  preced- 
ing, 156;  Grant's  objective, 
160,  163;  Holly  Springs, 
163-64;  Confederates  hold, 
167;  Grant's  position,  260- 
261;  generals  at,  261-62; 
Navy  at,  262-63,  265-67; 
Grant's  maneuvers,  263-64; 
Federal  force,  267-68;  Con- 
federate force,  268;  scene  of 
action,  268;  army  rations  at, 
269-70;  siege,  271-77;  sur- 
render, 277-78;  significance 
of  victory,  280;  effect  of 
victory,  305,  310 

"Vicksburg  Oak,"  Grant 
meets  Pemberton  under, 
277 

Vinton,  Major,  Union  oflacer  at 
San  Antonio,  9,  10 

Virginia,  Lee's  loyalty  to,  11; 
blockade,  16;  secedes,  17, 
56;  Lee  given  chief  command 
in,  19;  West  Virginia  part  of, 
23;  issues  call  for  volunteers, 
25;  West  Virginia  separates 
from,  29 ;  mountain  folk 
Unionists,  56;  Federals  hold 


western  part  of,  57;  Farragut 
from,  95;  Pope  transferred 
to,  159;  Burnside's  invasion 
of,  247-51;  Grant  transferred 
to,  334;  campaign  (1864), 
334-36,  340-46,  348-56,  362, 
365;  Wilderness,  341-44; 
Todd's  Tavern,  342;  Spot- 
sylvania, 342-43;  Sheridan's 
raid,  344,  345-46;  Cold  Har- 
bor, 349-54;  losses,  355; 
campaign  (1865),  380,  384, 
386-88;  Petersburg.  384,386; 
Five  Forks,  386;  Sailor's 
Creek,  387;  Lee's  surrender, 
388-93 ;  see  also  Peninsula 
campaign 
Virginia,  Merrimac  renamed,  86 
Virginia  Military  Institute, 
Jackson  at,  20;  cadets  join 
Jackson,  208 

Walke,  Henry,  commands 
Carondelet,  133,  134 

Walker,  Fort,  92 

Wallace,  General  Lew,  as  a 
leader,  135-36;  at  Fort 
Donelson,  138;  Shiloh,  148, 
151,  154;  and  Early,  356 

Wallace,  General  W.  H.  L., 
killed,  152 

Warley,  A.  F.,  commands 
Manassas,  101 

Warren,  G.  K.,  Gettysburg, 
295,  300;  defection  at  Cold 
Harbor,  351 

Washburn,  Colonel  Francis,  at 
Sailor's  Creek,  387 

Washburne,  E.  B.,  introduces 
Swinton,  333 

Washington,  capture  of  rolling 
stock  hampers,  24;  desire  to 
defend,  37,  197;  sea-power 
saves,  85;  Southern  plans 
against,  193,  210;  reserve 
corps  at, 213, 231, 235;  Pope's 
army  retires  to,  243;  Early 
makes  for,  356;  Union  troops 
reviewed  in,  395 


424 


INDEX 


Wassaw  Sound,  duel  between 
Weehawken  and  Atlanta  in, 
309 

Wauhatchie  (Tennessee),  bat- 
tle, 281 

Weed,  Thurlow,  election  agent, 
360 

Weehawken,  duel  with  Atlanta, 
309 

Weitzel,  General  Godfrey,  at 
Fort  Fisher,  325 

Welles,  Gideon,  Secretary  of 
Navy,  71,  179;  report  to 
Congress,  72;  orders  con- 
cerning New  Orleans,  94,  96 

West,  settlers  beyond  reach  of 
war,  62 

West  Virginia,  part  of  Virginia, 
23;  Jackson  from,  24;  be- 
comes separate  State,  29,  56; 
campaign  in,  29-33;  Fre- 
mont in,  199,  200 

Westfield,  Renshaw  refuses  to 
surrender,  114 

Wheeler,  General  Joseph,  Con- 
federate cavalry  leader,  368 

White  House  (Virginia),  Mc- 
Clellan's  base,  201,  203,  210, 
222,  225 

White  Oak  Swamp  (Virginia), 
battle,  225 

Whitman,  Walt,  on  Lincoln, 
171-72 

Wilcox,  General  C.  M.,  Pick- 
ett's Charge,  302 

Wilderness,  battle,  333,  341-44 

Wilkeson,  Lieutenant  Bayard, 
Gettysburg,  298-99 


Wilkeson,  Frank,  Recollections 
of  a  Private  Soldier  in  the 
Army  of  the  Potomac,  81 

Williams,  General  Thomas,  at 
Vicksburg  with  Farragut, 
107,  108;  killed,  110 

Wilmington  (North  Carolina), 
rail  connections  threatened, 
253;  in  Confederate  hands, 
310,  335;  Fort  Fisher  guards 
entrance  to,  323;  captured, 
380 

Wilson's  Creek  (Missouri),  bat- 
tle, 29,  119-20 

Winchester  (Virginia),  John- 
ston retires  to,  37,  43;  Banks 
refuses  to  retreat  to,  212; 
forces  at,  216;  Ewell  drives 
Milroy  out  of,  291 

Winslow,  Captain,  commands 
Kearsarge,  314,  315 

Wise,  H.  A.,  ex-Governor  of 
Virginia,  31 

Worden,  Captain  J.  L.,  com- 
mands Monitor,  88 

Wright,  Colonel  W.  W.,  engi- 
neer, 384 

Wyandotte,  vessel  at  Pensa- 
cola,  4 

Yazoo  River,   Porter  on,  266, 

267 
Yellow    Tavern,    Stuart    and 

Sheridan  at,  345 
Yorktown,  Confederates  bold, 

200;  evacuated,  201 

Zouaves  under  Stuart,  51 


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